This paper presents a comprehensive marketing plan for Sof-A-Logue.com, a social media platform seeking to expand its brand and grow revenue in a competitive digital landscape. The plan begins by examining the backgrounds and marketing strategies of Facebook and LinkedIn, comparing how each platform reaches its target market. It then proposes a tailored marketing strategy for Sof-A-Logue.com, analyzing the four Ps of marketing — product, price, promotion, and place — alongside market segmentation approaches. The paper also addresses the evolving social media communications environment and concludes with a SWOT analysis situating Sof-A-Logue within its current competitive context.
Sof-A-Logue.com is establishing a new marketing plan to become better known to new markets and clients. To this end, Facebook and LinkedIn — two major social media platforms — serve as a basis for comparing marketing strategies and identifying best practices. The following analysis is intended to help clarify what steps should be taken to bring Sof-A-Logue.com to the next level of market visibility and growth.
LinkedIn is a social media platform that Reid Hoffman founded in 2002. LinkedIn helps its clients become more productive and successful by making professional connections visible. It is a social network focused on providing professionals with a platform to interact and share ideas. As of February 2013, LinkedIn functioned as the world's leading professional network on the internet, with a membership of 200 million across numerous countries ("LinkedIn," 2013).
LinkedIn remains the most suitable way for professionals to stay connected with others from around the world. It is a highly competitive social platform that helps its members establish, broaden, and sustain a network of business mentors. By contrast, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook in 2004, and by 2011 it had more than 500 million active users, with at least half logging in daily (Zarrella & Zarrella, 2011). Facebook is an online social site that gives people a natural and enjoyable way to share information and ideas. The platform allows users to stay connected and communicate with friends through videos, photos, status updates, and messages, among other features. It is among the sites with the highest traffic levels globally (Zarrella & Zarrella, 2011).
Social media platforms enable people to interact with others by creating, sharing, and exchanging information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. According to Castells (2007) and Manovich (2009), at the turn of the new millennium, the world saw the emergence of Web 2.0, which shifted online services from providing one-way channels to being fully interactive, allowing for two-way communication in real time (as cited in Dijck, 2013). These platforms have provided channels through which people from all walks of life can interact socially, economically, and professionally.
Families use these platforms to communicate with loved ones, organizations negotiate deals through social media, and students use them in pursuit of academic and career goals. It is important to note that social media platforms are dynamic objects rather than fixed products. According to Feenberg (2009), their design should meet the evolving needs of users and the objectives of owners, both of which are likely to shift alongside changing technological infrastructure and competing platforms (as cited in Dijck, 2013). Social media is now widely used for communication and interaction across all spheres of life.
Facebook and LinkedIn employ a number of marketing strategies that have enabled them to recruit and retain large user bases. First, Facebook has developed products in various forms that customers can use for different functions. For instance, Facebook groups allow members to create and join communities — such as a college class — and Facebook pages allow individuals and organizations to establish a public presence. Second, Facebook allows users to access it through multiple media, including mobile phones, which are accessible to nearly everyone ("Facebook," 2013). The platform also enables members to interact through photos, video, and chat, among other features.
Facebook introduced Live feeds, which have given it a competitive advantage over other social media platforms ("Facebook," 2013). Additionally, Facebook actively seeks feedback about how it is performing in the market. Through its website, it has developed a platform where users can share feedback about products and expectations. Facebook also allows members to access it through other websites and search engines such as Yahoo.
LinkedIn, on the other hand, targets a professional niche by positioning itself as a professional rather than a recreational site ("LinkedIn," 2013). This positioning allows it to attract a significant number of professional clients who might otherwise be reluctant to join networks perceived as purely social. LinkedIn also allows businesses to advertise their products and services on the platform, broadening its commercial appeal. For both sites, membership is free — a strategy designed to attract users regardless of socioeconomic background.
To reach their target markets, both LinkedIn and Facebook employ various methods, some of which are shared while others are unique to each platform. Both maintain websites through which they communicate with their audiences, providing news, product updates, and a login portal. Both have also leveraged external media to build their profiles — for example, through entries in Encyclopædia Britannica ("Facebook," 2013; "LinkedIn," 2013). Despite these similarities, differences exist: Facebook has incorporated social responsibility as a market outreach strategy, while LinkedIn has not pursued this approach. Facebook also relies primarily on text-based communication with its market, whereas LinkedIn makes greater use of graphics. An understanding of these communication channels provides a foundation for deciding which methods Sof-A-Logue.com should adopt.
"Recommended marketing approaches and product expansion ideas"
"Application of product, price, promotion, and place framework"
"Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats assessment"
Traditionally, organizations considered markets as physical places where people conducted their transactions. However, with the invention and advancement of technology, that has changed, and now businesses are carrying out their transactions on the internet. Any business that wants to succeed must take this reality seriously and recognize that it operates in a competitive environment. Sof-A-Logue.com must embrace digital marketing strategies — informed by the successes of Facebook and LinkedIn — to build its brand, expand its user base, and achieve sustainable revenue growth.
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