Marketing in the Age of Digital Media: The Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media as a Marketing Tool Introduction

Digital media has revolutionized the way in which marketing is conducted. New media has transformed the landscape of advertising and displaced old media as the means of reaching an increasingly fragmented culture (Webster & Ksiazek, 2012) and targeting specific audiences and individuals. One aspect of digital media that has come under increasing focus in this new age of media is social media. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat have allowed individuals and companies to brand themselves in new and unique ways, reach out to consumers with the click of a button, and spread messages further and faster than ever before (Kwok & Yu, 2013). Celebrities, hospitality companies, beverage businesses, and auto manufacturers have all turned to social media to enhance their image, build their brand, develop relationships with consumers, and grow their followers. Companies like GoPro have used YouTube to host user-generated content and draw attention to the types of videos that people are capturing with their state-of-the-art camcording technology (Leonhardt, 2015). This paper will examine the ways in which social media can be used to help advance the objectives of marketing, while acknowledging at the same time the inherent risks involved in social media usage. The paper will conclude with recommendations for mitigating those risks.

The Advantages of Social Media in Marketing

In the digital age, the main method of marketing is related to the collection of Big Data, which facilitates targeted marketing or direct marketing to consumers on the Internet. Browsing history is analyzed along with age, gender, interests and so on to enable marketers to deliver ads to consumers online that appeal to some specific interest that the consumer is likely to have. This method of marketing is specific and calculated. It is the opposite in a sense to the manner in which social media is used by marketers in the digital age. Google, for example, uses Mesa, an online data warehouse that the firm uses for its advertising objectives (Gupta et al., 2016). Mesa works by digesting data that is obtained from upstream services, and it then “aggregates and persists the data internally, and serves the data via user queries” (Gupta et al., 2016, p. 117). So much digital calculation and statistical analysis goes into marketing tactics based on big data analytics, that by comparison social media based marketing often appears like the Wild West of marketing.

To be fair, social media based marketing can also employ the use of big data analytics. For instance, companies can look at statistics related to how often users or consumers visit platforms like Twitter or Facebook, YouTube or Pinterest. They can then develop campaigns that invite users to upload content to their favorite social media platforms, share stories, offer tips to other consumers and in general generate content for the firm that the firm in turn uses to promote its brand or products. The firm does not simply willy-nilly embark on a campaign of this nature; rather it bases the project on the application of big data analytics (Tsou, 2015).

Social media can put a company in the spotlight like no other digital media can do. Social media allows a company to engage directly with consumers, the public, put out messages, promote new products or ideas, grow a group of followers, and develop a brand image. Tesla is one of the greatest examples of a company that has used social media to market itself to a target audience interested in the same goals of sustainability...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has used Twitter and other social media platforms to make his public company popular among investors and consumers by posting videos, personal messages, pictures and links to articles (Orozco, 2016). His company has grown in value substantially over the past decade as a result. Using social media to market oneself or one’s company certainly has its appeal, as it allows one to reach a mass audience instantly and to craft an image, create a message, and create relationships with followers who will support the vision, ideas, and concepts of the company and thereby increase its visibility and market presence. Four Seasons, Red Bull, GoPro and Tesla are just a handful of companies that have used social media campaigns to market their products and services.
Social media is also helpful in terms of connecting companies with the next generation of consumers. Generation Y has essentially come of age in the digital age: they do not know life before computers or the Internet. They are more likely to get their news and information about what to consume from social media than they are from traditional media formats, such as television or print media (Bolton et al., 2013). By using the type of platforms that these consumers favor most, companies can achieve more success in their marketing campaigns than if they simply ignored them.

While social media based marketing certainly offers its advantages over traditional forms of marketing in the digital age, the strategy is not without its risks. These risks should be considered and approached cautiously because companies and individuals who build their brand image up over many years can see it all swept away in an instant through a single slip-up via social media. The power of social media based marketing is such that it can both make and break an individual or a company—and that is why it is both impressive and frightening as a marketing strategy.

Risks: The Disadvantages of Social Media Based Marketing

Lack of Filter

Numerous examples abound of celebrities and CEOs getting into trouble via social media for not filtering themselves, their thoughts or their comments until it was too late. In some cases, individuals have lost their jobs simply because they were too engrossed in social media to pay attention to their work. Brian Cullinan of Pricewaterhouse Coopers was blamed for ruining Oscar night at the Academy Awards when he handed the wrong envelope for Best Picture to the presenters: the culprit, it was later learned, was his preoccupation with posting pictures to social media (Chen, 2017). What should have been a great night for promotional activity turned into a disaster for the firm and for Cullinan personally who was barred for taking part in anymore Oscar night activities. Roseanne Barr lost her sitcom after posting derogatory remarks on Twitter (Effron, Kakkar & Knowles, 2018). Tesla CEO Elon Musk is as popular on Twitter as President Trump, but the former’s words have also been the reason the SEC has launched an investigation into the firm: Musk used Twitter to declare that he intended to take the company private—the only problem was that he did not have funding secured (even though he Tweeted that he did). Instead of using social media to positively promote his company, he created a firestorm that is likely to result in billions lost from lawsuits accusing Musk of stock manipulation (Gedye, 2018).

Problems Controlling the Narrative

Once a story about a company hits social media, it is difficult for the firm to control the narrative. Social media has proved to be the…