The Social Media Marketing Mix - The 4 P’s

I am sure all of you know all about the marketing mix. You know, “The 4 P’s” which includes Product, Price, Placement and Promotion. But now I just wanted to explore the mix with a different angle that relates to social media marketing. The four P’s I am about to bring up are a bit different than what we are used to seeing in the marketing mix. 

However, I believe they are the four fundamental elements of social media marketing.

You will also notice that I have left “Product” out of the mix; the reason is simple, if you don’t have a good product or service there is nothing to market or create customer loyalty towards that. It will fail either now or later. So I have taken product out of the mix because everything else surrounds the product or the service itself. That is why there is a mix and your product or service is fundamental to making this mixture work.

The First P = People

This is the most crucial part of the social media marketing mix. In the old days when traditional media reigned supreme, brands pushed their products. Today consumers are in control. People want to be heard and people know they can be heard. So the first thing that needs to be done to utilize social media is listening to these people. Let’s not even get to participating and engaging right now, because they are secondary. The main goal at this point is to listen to what others are saying.

If you are a known brand, there are people talking about you. They are talking on the web, they are talking over dinner at the table and they are talking on the phone about your product while taking a shit. The power in social media lies in being all ears at first so you can analyze. So as to see what they are saying, what emotions your product is evoking among these people. Whether you call them your target market or people that help you with research and development (yup they can be your R&D team if you listen to them), the first element of your mix is people. Without people you have no one to listen to, you have no one to cater to, you have no one to engage with and you have no one to sell to.

The Second P = Platform

Now that you know the key to making things happen for you business revolves around people, you need to know where these people are hanging out. Although your first reaction might be to jump on Twitter and Facebook, which may not always be the wisest decision. You need to know what platform these people (people you want to reach out to) are on. If most of your consumers reside in Brazil, your first option might be to monitor Orkut which is huge in Brazil rather than Facebook and so on. The key is to know where the people you want to reach out to are. Opening a Facebook account just because everyone is using it may not be the right approach for you.

Maybe your target market is not really heavy on these “social networking” sites; communicate heavily on one of the early forms of social media such as forums. In that case you should be finding these forums where “your people” are talking, and listen to them to see how they see your product or services. Just because everyone is on YouTube, Facebook, etc. doesn’t mean these are the first platforms you should target on. You need to find where the people are (the first element) and choose your platform and then expand to others. It will be much easier to jump in where the people who use your products and services are because that’s where they are comfortable. You can’t move a community that is already thriving on one platform and try and pull them where you want, you have to adapt to the platform they are on and keep listening.

The Third P = Participation

Of course you know all about the participation. Nothing happens on social media without participation and this is the third element of social media marketing mix. You are listening to people, you know where they are and it’s time to engage. It’s time to respond and tell them you are listening. Everyone is always touting you should participate and engage but this is not the first step in utilizing social media for your business. You need to listen first and know what they are saying so you are ready to participate and respond.

Social media is all about participation. But participation doesn’t mean simply starting a conversation for the sake of it. Participation means knowing how to build a relationship with people who are using your products/services or are thinking of it. How do you make these people to buy and talk more about your product so the word spreads? Just listen to them and respond to their concern. Be where they are and BE THERE.

The Fourth P = Promotion

Promoting a product on the web isn’t easy. Sure you can shout and say “buy me,” but it would be hard to sell using that approach. The last element of social media marketing is the one that is already happening if you are integrating the first three elements. You may not see the impact in sale or word of mouth activity right away but as you move forward, you will be monitoring a lot more chatter about your brand, hopefully in a positive way.

Of course to sell products and services you have to promote. Just listening and responding won’t do the magic alone, so you need a strategy to tap into the people you have now made friends with. Try going on Facebook, Twitter, Forums, YouTube or any other community platforms and say “buy our products” and the community will say to you “Don’t tell us what to do, ask us. Ask us politely because we matter.” The words may not be exact but that’s what the implications will be. Be careful when promoting.

Wait it out, build the community around your brand and listen to them when they bring problems. When they have a concern, respond to them what you are doing to fix them. That right there is your promotion. That right there will boost word of mouth marketing. When you have a loyal group of people that are ready to talk about you, unleash the marketing genius in you.

These four elements are very critical to make things happen for your brand through different social media channels. Like I said, although I didn’t include “product” in the mix, don’t assume it’s not there. The product or the service is the reason why these four elements are required. If you have to call it The 5 P’s of social media marketing, so be it.

Source: Scribd.com

Social Media Marketing – An Overview

Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, etc., These are all examples of social media, and I bet as soon as you hear these words, you can add at least another three sites to the list off the top of your head. But what is social media?

Social media essentially is a category of online media where people are talking, participating, sharing, networking, and bookmarking online. Most social media services encourage discussion, feedback, voting, comments, and sharing of information from all interested parties.

It's more of a two-way conversation, rather than a one-way broadcast like traditional media. Another unique aspect of social media is the idea of staying connected or linked to other sites, resources, and people.

According to Ron Jones' - "Social media essentially is a category of online media where people are talking, participating, sharing, networking, and bookmarking online."

There is a wide variety of social media, ranging from social sharing sites such as YouTube and Flickr through social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook.

In my opinion, social media has shot to the forefront of people's attention because it's fun. Thanks to social media, it's easy to share your ideas, photos, videos, likes and dislikes, with the world at large - and find out what they think of them. You can find friends, business contacts and become part of a community or a bunch of different communities. 

Social media gives you what TV never could - a chance to be engaged and engage others.

Because of this, social media is of particular interest to businesses. Currently, businesses of all sizes are experimenting with social media marketing, grappling with the question of how to get in on what appears to be an especially viral way to get their message (and their products) out there.

Insight of Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a recent addition to organizations’ integrated marketing communications plans. Integrated marketing communications is a principle organizations follow to connect with their targeted markets. Integrated marketing communications coordinates the elements of the promotional mix; advertising, personal selling, public relations, publicity, direct marketing, and sales promotion. Increasingly also viral marketing campaigns are grouped to integrated marketing communications.

In the traditional marketing communications model, the content, frequency, timing, and medium of communications by the organization is in collaboration with an external agent, i.e. advertising agencies, marketing research firms, and public relations firms. However, the growth of social media has impacted the way organizations communicate. With the emergence of Web 2.0, the internet provides a set of tools that allow people to build social and business connections, share information and collaborate on projects online.

Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. A corporate message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it is coming from a trusted source, as opposed to the brand or company itself.

Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet access. Increased communication for organizations fosters brand awareness and better customer service. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns. With emergence of services like Twitter, the barrier to entry in social media is greatly reduced.

Social media marketing is also known as SMO - Social Media Optimization, benefits organizations and individuals by providing an additional channel for customer support, a means to gain customer and competitive insight, recruitment and retention of new customers/business partners, and a method of managing their reputation online. Key factors that ensure its success are its relevance to the customer, the value it provides them with and the strength of the foundation on which it is built.

Finally it is a strong foundation to serves as a stand or platform in which the organization can centralize its information and direct customers on its recent developments via other social media channels, such as article and press release publications, etc.

Kinds and benefits of Social Media

Many social media sites come in the form of a blog, micro blog, podcast, video cast, forum, wiki, or some kind of content community. To help you understand social media better, let's break them down into basic forms or groups.

Social news: Sites like Digg, Sphinn, Newsvine, and BallHype let you read about news topics and then vote and/or comment on the articles. Articles with more votes get promoted to a more prominent position.

Social sharing: Sites like Flickr, Snapfish, YouTube, and Jumpcut let you create, upload, and share videos or photos with others.

Social networks: Sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter allow you to find and link to other people. Once linked or connected, you can keep up to date with that person's contact info, interests, posts, etc. Many people are connecting to friends and business associates with whom they had fallen out of touch. It's bringing the world together like nothing else has.

Social bookmarking: Sites like Delicious, Faves, StumbleUpon, BlogMarks and Diigo allow you to find and bookmark sites and information of interest. You can save your bookmarks online and access them from anywhere or share them with others.

This is just a sampling of social media sites. More are added daily. Breaking them down into these categories or groups will help you understand their focus and to consider which avenue is right for your approach to social media marketing.

Key Benefits:

Let's look at the general scope of social media universe.

• Five of the top 10 fastest-growing Web brands are user-generated content sites?
• Sixty-seven percent of businesses say that the best source for advice on products and services are their consumers?
• Forty-five percent of adult Internet users have created content online?
• There are about 1.2 million blog posts per day?

So do you think it would benefit you to tap into this ever-growing universe of social media? Absolutely! Many companies are trying to figure out how to get involved. They're shifting money from traditional marketing budgets to social media marketing because it:

• Helps manage company's or brand's reputation.
• Builds brand awareness and helps improve how people view your brand.
• Gets you closer to your customers. Learn about their needs then respond. Discuss converse, debate.
• Offers creative and effective ways to learn insights not previously available.
• Features new and inexpensive ways to support your clients.
• Is typically less expensive than traditional advertising.
• Offers various ways to measure and track performance.

Listed above are some of the key benefits to use the social media is the best channel to promoting the products or services through internet.

Source: scribd.com and searchenginewatch.com