Social networks, engagement and potential success

Citation

by Dennis A. Pitta, E. (2012), "Social networks, engagement and potential success", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 29 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcm.2012.07729gaa.002

Social networks, engagement and potential success

Article Type: Internet currency From: Journal of Consumer Marketing, Volume 29, Issue 7

Edited by Dennis A. Pitta, University of Baltimore

For the last several years, the focus of this column has been the marketing developments and implications of social media. During that period social marketing has evolved dramatically. Marketers are aware that social media by itself is not effective in driving sales. What is important is the web of relationships that social media fosters that engender trust and respect. Trust in a source’s impartiality and respect for its expertise places that source in the position of advisor, separate from the crowd of marketers whose obvious aim is to drive sales.

Ideally, content drives connection, the foundation for building a relationship. Content is a bit like flypaper. It may be a lure that attracts visitors and offers the opportunity for them to stop and spend some time exploring it. In fact, it is the core of social as a concept. When considered, social could be a platform or content. The platform facilitates the discovery and distribution of content (Fitzgerald, 2012) that is arguably more important. The nature, scope and value of content varies. Some content is professionally crafted and worthy of paid media. Other content might be mundane news, updates, and comments. It may be focused on issues of limited personal interest or be useful to a wider audience. Experienced marketers realize, that social media platforms such as Facebook are not valuable “advertising” media in the traditional sense. They may offer banner images and paid text links. However, their most important use is to leverage content that users view as relevant, authentic, and engaging (Fitzgerald, 2012).

Freed from the one-way limits of traditional advertising, B2B marketers learned to provide items of value that benefit potential customers using social media. Those items may be informational and help the target audience navigate the world of marketing, government regulations, technology, customer satisfaction or competitive strategy. B2B marketers may use social media to provide value and build relationships. That form of media might be focused on an industry, like the automobile industry and might provide the latest news from a national government about upcoming auto regulations or technological information about breakthroughs in engine design. The value provided is in relation to the target audience. For example, innovations in engine fuel efficiency might help automakers compete more effectively. That value can translate into a relationship bond.

In the past social media marketing involved attempts to build brand awareness and a conversation about the brand. Part of the reason was the dismal state of graphics in the 1980s. It made sense to concentrate on brand benefits and universal selling propositions. Selling requires an enhanced experience epitomized by the old adage, “Let the customer hold it in his (or her) hands!”. The physical product can carry much of the selling burden. However, when online content looked like a series of Lego® blocks, the selling burden was higher than that of a face to face interaction. Today, image quality has improved greatly. Now marketers are preparing to use social to move products through the distribution channel. One factor is the enhanced visual content that social channels support (Tate, 2012). The online experience is so visually accurate that social media sites such as Facebook with picture galleries, support remarkable visual images. With the enhanced online experience as a foundation, marketers have begun to view these visual social networks as a more direct pathway to sales. A potential model for influencing product sales is: Discovery → Engagement → Purchase (Tate, 2012).

Engagement

Evaluating current social media marketing practice highlights the need for stronger engagement with the target audience. The engagement stage is critical since it offers consumers a chance to “amplify” the product or brand. Amplification is basically the process of a consumer personalizing the relevance of a product to his or her life. The moment a customer encounters a new brand is a good time to invite or entice them to participate with – and amplify – that product. Traditionally, marketers used offers like recipe contests, challenges like finding new uses for a prize or other means to let the consumer communicate how they use brands or what role they serve in their lives. Today, social media can make the communication almost instant and involve others. Online, customers can explore a product in detail, offer feedback and insight, outline needed improvements and vote on their favorite features or those of competitors. Moreover they can tell their friends about it. Social media offers something quite extraordinary: “frictionless sharing.”

When marketers used to emphasize traditional word of mouth, they spent considerable effort to promote their brands and get consumers to do the work of communication. If the marketing efforts were effective, consumers would talk to co-workers around the water cooler or call friends to share their experience. E-mail made it a bit easier since one could communicate without traveling but consumers still had to log on, compose a message and send it. Sharing was enough work to deter some from communicating. With frictionless sharing, marketers provide amplification opportunities that the consumer can use with little or no effort. One example is consumer use of Facebook. When a user cites a vacation trip and posts pictures of a trip to Croatia, friends see the posts and can evaluate their own interest. Analogously, other sites offer contact with interest groups whose members can see what people like them value. The final stage is for friends and others to click on the posts to investigate and possibly recommunicate frictionlessly. Used in this way, social media can foster a cascade of online word of mouth with little effort by consumers.

Notably, one can survey a sample of commercial Facebook pages in search of examples of successful brand promotion. While many have quantities of posts, few have brand engagement opportunities. That information reveals a problem that marketers can address. For the Discovery → Engagement → Purchase model to be successful, forces like social purchase influence have to be harnessed and marketers need to prepare to make them effective. An engagement experience solidifies the connection between discovery and purchase.

This is especially important for high involvement products and brands. Those products are usually complicated and expensive in monetary, commitment or social terms and consumers find value in learning the experiences of others. Their readiness to listen can magnify the social momentum for that product and make the purchase decision clearer (Hollebeek, 2011). Even with low involvement products a compelling engagement stage can facilitate purchase (Heath, 2009).

Conclusions

Marketers are just beginning to come to grips with using social marketing for brand promotion and sales. However, it seems that the it will be critical to plan and implement strategies that exploit the use of social media not only to make consumers aware of products but to help them engage with the brand and make purchase decisions based on their own wants. Making the process easier by building social momentum will enhance the decision and promises to lead to higher marketing success. It illustrates another old adage, “Make it easy for the customer to buy.”

In our next issue, we will investigate other informative sites and invite readers to submit their favorite Internet sites for our consideration.

Reader requests

Please forward all requests to review innovative internet sites to: Dr Dennis Pitta, University of Baltimore, 1420 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21201-5779, USA. Alternatively, please send e-mail to: dpitta@ubalt.edu for prompt attention.