SOCIAL MEDIA

Media communications have changed. Traditionally, the term media has been expressed in the context of how one communicates to another. Today, as applied online, new forms of media have emerged that not only allow one to communicate to others, but allow the recipient of the message to interact with the author.

Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques. Social media is the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING OR SOCIAL NETWORK MARKETING

Social media marketing is the marketing strategies that smart businesses are employing in order to be a part of a network of people online. Just as friends gather in public pubs, coffee shops, or barber shops, groups of people are gathered and connected through various online tools and websites. These people rely on their online network of friends for advice, sharing, and socializing. Many different styles of online communities have surfaced over the years. However within the last few years, newly created communities are offering more rich interaction. These marketing strategies allow conversation, connection, and a sense of community among its members. Social media marketing is a recent addition to organizations integrated marketing communications plans. Integrated marketing communications is a practice organizations follow to connect with their target markets. Integrated marketing communications coordinates promotional elements: advertising, personal selling, public relations, publicity, direct marketing and sales promotion. Increasingly, viral marketing campaigns are also grouped into integrated marketing communications.

The Five Pillars of Social Network Marketing Any and all forms of Social Media Marketing tactics fall under at least one of these five forms of action. Often the same channel will incorporate two or more of these: 1) Identity-based Interaction it is declaration of your value, who you are, and where you can be found, your online identity, that you, as a provider, define and declare. This is anything from your About Us pages on your blog or website, to your Facebook profile. An expanded business card, we can say.

2) Association-based Interaction is your customers opportunity to associate themselves with you and you with your customers. Most obviously, this is accomplished through things like becoming Friends on MySpace or Facebook. 3) User-initiated Conversation is your users opportunity to create their own declarations or questions, and your opportunity to respond. This is your opportunity to be there and cater to them. Here, you serve your customers. Examples of this lie in message boards, forums and groups sites such as Google Groups, Yahoo! Groups, community sites, etc. 4) Provider-initiated Conversation is your chance to find out what your customers think, feel, love and hate about your product. 5) In-Person Interaction is the pinnacle form of interaction with your customers. Youre interacting with them online, why not in person? Meet your customers. Let them interact with other customers. Build your community. Go to conferencesbetter yet, organize your own gatherings.

Characteristics of Social Network Marketing Inexpensive Fast Viral Results cant be measured Peer - to peer conversation Exchange of content More reach and impact

Social Network Marketing = Right message + to right people + the right conversation

SOCIAL NETWORK MARKETING STRATEGIES

1) Listen to the Online Conversation Social media offers you the opportunity of doing in-depth research virtually at no cost. You can tap into the online conversations to find out: who is talking about you what they are saying is it positive or negative where are the conversations taking place what communities talk about you what are your competitors doing in social media

Once you have this information you can allocate your resources wisely. Youll know where to start and what social sites you should be concentrating on. 2) Establish Your Share of Voice There are millions of conversations online every day. When you tap into the ones about your industry, what share of voice do you have? Share of Voice is defined as the percentage of the mentions that are about your Brand/company/organization in the particular niche or market youre active in. Share of voice leads to market share. Establishing and tracking share of voice used to be a advertising metric, but since the most trusted form of advertising is now conversations, its become an important one for social media. A gain in Share of Voice is an important measurement for social media programs 3) Setting Goals and Benchmarks Here are some common business goals for social media: Brand Reputation Increased Brand Awareness Increase share of voice Increasing Sales

4) Finding Relevant Communities Its no longer about how many people did we reach, its rather, have we reached the right people who want to engage and communicate with us? Tracking content about you and your industry in social networks like Facebook and Twitter, as well as smaller, niche networks that are relevant to your brand or organization is helpful. There are so many small social network built around a group that is passionate about a subject. It is important to find the ones that are relevant to your company or organization. 5) Identifying Online Influencers Today, influence is about accuracy and trust. You want to reach the bloggers and social networkers who have influence those who can cause others to take action, change their perception and/or their behavior. They're the ones who send a flood of traffic to your blog or your website, because when they link to you or recommend your product, their followers take action. 6) Developing Your Content Strategy Success in social media depends on the quality of your content. Its about engaging people and the key to engagement is good content. In social networks people are creating, reading, saving, tagging and sharing content. If you dont produce the kind of content they value, it wont get republished or shared.

7) Creating and Delivering Content Once you have a content strategy based on solid research bright ideas will naturally flow about what to create and how to deliver this content. Experimenting with a Facebook page and a Twitter feed isnt enough. You have to create supporting content - a company blog, an interactive website, interesting articles, images and videos. If you want bloggers and online reporters to write about you and send you traffic, give them excellent content. 9) Engage and Facilitate Conversations Its not enough to push out content. Social media is not just another marketing channel you can use to reach your target audience. Content should be created with a view to inspiring and participating in conversations. Social media is about a two-way flow of conversation. People are no longer willing to be passive bystanders they want to take an active part of the conversation. FORMS SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES List of the Best Social Networking websites 2011

Facebook Twitter MySpace LinkedIn Friendster Hi5 Orkut NetLog Badoo Meetup Digg Stumbleupon Ning

In 2004, Mark Zuckerburg launched the beginnings of Facebook for his peers at Harvard University to stay connected with each other. Little did he know that it would soon become a multi-million dollar business and one of the most popular social networking sites in the world. Facebook allows millions of its users to interact and stay connected through photos, wall posts, profiles, messages, and even status updates. Today, even older generations are beginning to find that online social networking is the new fad of social networking. Facebook not only attracts users for communicating with friends and family, but also it has been quite common for companies to increase their efficiency and productivity in advertising. Facebook for businesses is a powerful marketing tool in todays world. These companies are able to attract different target audiences from teenagers to grandparents. This helps these businesses to increase the variety of their demographics. Powerful Tips for Marketing on Facebook There is much more to marketing on Facebook than just creating a profile. Keeping your fans engaged is the key. Dont be a brand, but be a community people love being a part of. The following points tell us how we can use the medium of Facebook to increase our customer base as well as retain the ones we have. 1. Facebook Profile: By creating a profile for yourself or your business, you are establishing your identity. This will take you a long way in developing relationships with fellow users and in positioning your business. You profile lets you interact with people on a personal note, more so if its a local business. Here are some aspects of a profile page: Profile Picture: No matter what they say, a book is judged by its cover. Use the most flattering picture as your profile picture. Hundreds of indifferent people with little time to spare are going to decide whether to add you based on your picture. Add Friends: After creating a profile, dont wait for things to happen. Add new friends every day and the word will spread that youre on Facebook. Wall: This is your main platform to interact with Facebook users. Post messages on your wall and also comment on members activities, though, only when relevant. Photo Albums and Videos: Photos and videos are a great way to showcase the latest collection of your product. Moreover, the first thing most Facebook users check are photo updates. You can tag your fans in pictures of new collections, or even ask them to tag themselves as a part of a game or contest.

2. Fan Pages: Facebook Pages, known as Fan Pages, are designed for businesses, brands, companies, products and celebrities. It enables public figures, organizations and other entities to create an authentic and public presence on Facebook. You can encourage users to become fans of your page and share information with them by uploading pictures, videos, status updates, hosting discussions and displaying wall posts. Unlike Facebook Profiles, Pages are visible to everyone on the internet and are generally better for long-term relationships with your fans, readers or customers. 3. Groups: Facebook Groups allow people to come together around a common cause or activity to express their views. One of the best features of groups is the ability to send messages directly to members Facebook inboxes. Its a great way to form a community and help your brand image. 4. Events: Simply put, Facebook Events can help you connect with your target audience and invite them for your events, even if they arent on your friend list or one of your fans. Events can be created individually or even from Profiles and Pages. Facebook also gives a choice between making the event Public and Private. 5. Be Unique and Keep Updating: Theres nothing more boring than bland Facebook pages. Add lots of personality and fun to your profile. If possible, try to create applications just for your page. Offer something different so that they keep coming back, instead of letting them wait for updates from you. 6. Reward Loyal Supporters: Encourage loyal supporters to join your Page and reward them. Tabs or badges like member of the month that can be placed on their profiles for visibility can be awarded to them. A happy customer on Facebook can get you lots of attention. Remind users to Like and Share information about you. When their friends see the updates on the News Feed, its highly likely for them to do the same. 7. Use Contests and Polls: Holding contests encourages fans to interact directly with you. Dominos Show Us Your Pizza is a contest where people can send pictures of Dominos pizzas theyve orders. The best picture will be chosen by Dominos and the photographer gets a prize of $500 and a chance to get his picture featured in an ad. This has received a lot of attention from Facebook users. 8. Actively Participate Outside Your Page: Find other Facebook pages related to your industry or topic using Facebook Search & start actively commenting on their posts & updates. This is a great way to build relationships in your industry and even adds credibility to your business. 13. Marketplace: With Facebook Marketplace, you can buy and sell anything using the listing service. The Marketplace application page displays all the most recent listings in your networks. The difference between normal listings and the Marketplace is that you dont see another boring list of business, but they show up as the sites own updates. For example, a sales listing would show up in news feeds as John is selling Abstract Art. In this case, John can be a friend of

your or even a friends friend. You can find out what people want, what they are offering and also how you are connected to these people on Facebook.

Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that allows you answer the question, "What are you doing?" by sending short text messages 140 characters in length, called "tweets", to your friends, or "followers." The short format of the tweet is a defining characteristic of the service, allowing informal collaboration and quick information sharing that provides relief from rising email and IM fatigue. Twittering is also a less gated method of communication: you can share information with people that you wouldn't normally exchange email or IM messages with, opening up your circle of contacts to an ever-growing community of like-minded people. You can send your messages using the Twitter website directly, as a single SMS alert, or via a third-party application such as Twirl, Snitter , or the Twitterfox add-on for Firefox. Your tweets are displayed on your profile page, on the home page of each of your followers, and in the Twitter public timeline . HOW DELL IS USING TWITTER TO INCREASE SALES Dell has found a way to use Twitter to generate sales. In December InternetNews reported that Dell has produced $1 million in revenue over the past year and a half through sale alerts via Twitter. People who sign up to follow Dell on Twitter receive messages when discounted products are available the companys Home Outlet Store. They can click over to purchase the product or forward the information to others.

Flickr is a free service for bloggers who wish to post photos, not only on their blog but also on the Flickr service for other Flickr users to peruse, vote on, add to their favorites list, etc. Flickr even supports RSS feeds, with ability to add comments and notes to photos. You can of course use Flickr to share your family photos and snapshots with friends and relatives. And amateur photographers can show off their work. On Flickr, the photographic "creme" rises to the top, due to other Flickr users who make comments, post blog entries, and cause the photos to achieve recognition in "most popular" lists

YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005. The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video and HTML5 technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, BBC, Vevo, Hulu and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and now operates as a subsidiary of Google.

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. As of 22 March 2011, LinkedIn reports more than 100 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide .The site is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. One purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people with whom they have some level of relationship, called Connections. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection. This list of connections can then be used in a number of ways: A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the connections of each of their connections (termed second-degree connections) and also the connections of second-degree connections (termed third-degree connections). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone a person wishes to know through a mutual contact. It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one's contact network. The feature LinkedIn Answers similar to Yahoo! Answers, allows users to ask questions for the community to answer. This feature is free and the main difference from the latter is that questions are potentially more business-oriented, and the identity of the people asking and answering questions is known. Another LinkedIn feature is LinkedIn Polls. A mobile version of the site was launched in February 2008 which gives access to a reduced feature set over a mobile phone. In mid-2008, LinkedIn launched LinkedIn DirectAds as a form of sponsored advertising. In October, 2008, LinkedIn revealed plans to opening its social network of 30 million professionals globally as a potential sample for business-to-business research. It is testing

a potential social-network revenue model-research that to some appears more promising than advertising. . In November, 2010, LinkedIn allowed businesses to list products and services on company profile pages; it also permitted LinkedIn members to "recommend" products and services and write reviews.

MySpace is a social networking website. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California. Myspace became the most popular social networking site in the United States in June 2006. According to com Score , Myspace was overtaken internationally by its main competitor, Facebook, in April 2008. Myspace employs 1,000 employees, after laying off 30 percent of its workforce in June 2000

Orkut is a social networking website that is owned and operated by Google Inc. The service is designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. The website is named after its creator, Google employee Orkut Bykkkten. Although Orkut is less popular in the United States than competitors Facebook and MySpace, it is one of the most visited websites in India and Brazil As of March 2011, Alexa traffic ranked Orkut 102nd in the world; the website currently has more than 100 million active users worldwide. Anyone 18 years old or older can join Orkut.

Hi5 is a social networking website based in San Francisco, California. In Hi5, users create an online profile in order to show information such as interests, age and hometown and upload user pictures where users can post comments. Hi5 also allows the user to create personal photo albums, play online games, and set up a music player in the profile. Users can also send friend requests via e-mail to other users. Some users opt to make their profiles available for everyone on Hi5 to view. Others exercise the option to make their profile viewable only to those people who are in their network. The network of friends consists of a user's direct friends (1st degree), the friends of those direct friends (2nd degree) and the friends of the friends of direct friends (3rd degree)

In early 2010, Hi5 began to evolve from a social network into a site focused on social gaming and opened to new game developers.

Friendster is a social networking website. Its headquarters are in Mountain View, California. The service allows users to contact other members, maintain those contacts, and share online content and media with those contacts. The website is also used for dating and discovering new events, bands, and hobbies. Users may share videos, photos, messages and comments with other members via their profile and their network

B2B MARKETING THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA

There are some very pertinent reasons why social media can play a very major role for B2B marketing in particular. 1) B2B relationships and transactions are typically high-touch and are mainly established through direct interfacing with customers and relationship building. With social media, you can interact with prospects and customers using an array of touch points. The two-way, typically synchronous real-time natures of these tools lend a highly personal dimension to the relationship. And, unlike traditional B2C marketing channels (ads, campaigns, etc.), social media allows more people in your organization to engage and build relationships with customers and prospects, thereby multiplying the high touch effect. 2) The B2B market is far smaller than the B2C market. This fact alone impels expanding your reach to identify new leads. Social media is well-placed to do just that. Just monitoring online opportunities and conversations alone can help you glean changing trends and needs. This could then fuel new offerings and new revenue channels. With the expanded reach you also get to identify companies with which to establish-revenue generating partnerships. 3) The remarkable thing about the B2B arena is how people in it actively network online to share knowledge and build their network of industry contacts. Using social media, they can now build professional communities online to share insights and solve problems, and leverage upon these interactions to build brand, reputation and prospects. 4) B2B buyers rely heavily on third-party feedback in making purchase decisions. They would also like to be part of the product or solution development process. They are also likely to trust the opinions of colleagues using the products far more than that of the company selling those very products. Social media channels are great avenues for providing objective, third party experiences and feedback, reduces buyer-side risk for big-ticket B2B purchases.

5) Social media engagements are a good platform to consistently demonstrate thought leadership. Thought leadership is fast emerging as a must-have in B2B marketing to have real impact, lead and stand out. It helps strengthen your market positioning, enhance your perceived value to clients, build trust and loyalty, and generate more business overall. Thought leaders can also expect greater recognition, demand and reach in the market. And what exactly is thought leadership? When you help people frame the way they think about key issues or guide them to smarter decisions, by presenting insightful, compelling and often provocative perspectives, that's when you are likely to be acknowledged as a thought leader - the "go to"business (or person) for a particular interest area.

CASE STUDIES
HP

HP social media case study is another good example, HP social media managers engaged experts who work daily with customers to develop relevant marketing content grounded in true client need and real-life business issues. By combining podcasting with blogging and traditional techmedia syndication, HP now validates its messaging via an extensive buyer audience review process that yields vetted, relevant content that HP marketing can deploy in its ongoing sales and marketing efforts. HP devised a creative strategy when launching their Z-series workstations which were to directly compete with Apple who were the dominant players in that arena. HP's social media strategy was to identify the biggest influencers within agencies who were heavily interactive and participative in online technology and hardware conversations. HP also created a

character, the superhero Mr Z, to anchor this campaign. HP loaned the 12 selected influencers a Z-series workstation and got them to use and talk about their experience of using the product in creative ways. These 12 individuals were asked to make short animation clips which were posted to YouTube. Blogs on the z-series experiment were created both on the agency websites and independent blogs. The winners had their clips on the Mr Z website and HP continued the conversations on this product via Facebook and Twitter.

Coca-Cola

Coco-Cola social media case study is one of the best examples available out there. The company was also named by Slates The Big Money as the brand making the best use of Facebook, and their well-publicized Expedition 206 campaign is billed as the companys largest social media project ever. Coco-Cola has used several ways such as blogging, sharing photos/videos, tweets, social media apps to promote their brand and achieves huge success.

REFERENCES
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media accessed on October 1, 2011 at 6:00 pm. 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_marketing accessed on October 1, 2011 at 8:00 pm. 3. http://social-networking-websites-review.toptenreviews.com accessed on October 3, 2011 at 11:00 pm.