The advent of globalization and the boom of the internet has taken the world by storm. One can surely say that the world has become a smaller place and the swap of ideas and interests is but a click away. The formations of cyber communities have also strengthened the bond of people that share the same ideals, hobbies and emotions. Programs were created to build a social network of people online to bridge the gap of continents and countries and create one big online community.
The internet has revolutionized not only inter-personal communication but also the way businesses work, market and advertise. It is only natural that the online community be used, not only as a pool of consumers but also as one big advertisement board, with both the product and the feedback coming from the consumers themselves. In recent times a new breed of online marketing has been born, using the social relationships of the consumers as its spring board. This has been termed as the social media marketing or SMM.
What is SMM?
Social Media Marketing has been defined as a kind or technique in marketing that uses social media networks to convey message, an idea, a brand, or an image. Social Media Marketing, like any form of marketing, aims to achieve anyone of these goals: build awareness of the company’s brand or idea, advertisement for a better brand name and visual recall, promote consumer-to-consumer or company-to-consumer interaction and of course the traditional encouragement to buy or use the services or products they offer. The peculiar thing with Social Media Marketing is that it reaches a very target specific audience with often the company posing as a consumer itself and sometimes even the consumer becoming an agent for the company. Unlike traditional marketing campaigns, the SMM uses all kinds of media imaginable from print to moving pictures or videos to audio and even face-to-face communication. And because SMM uses social networks or online communities, it reaches a variety of consumers so long as the company is able to influence those communities or people that are most ‘influential’ in the cyber social network.
SMM Forms of Action
The current literature on SMM has established that there are five pillars or forms of action in SMM. Two or more of these have been the goal of Social Media Marketers. The five SMM forms of action are: identity declaration, identity formation through association, consumer declarations, company or provider declaration and face-to-face interaction.
Identity declaration is a tactic used to convey an image or definition of a company, person, website or program. It conveys what the company is all about. Identity formation through association is also a form of building a company’s identity through the interaction of consumers and the communication of the consumer and the company. Consumer’s declaration is a channel in which the consumers declare their thoughts and opinions of the company, usually through a feedback on the services or product of the company. Provider declaration is a company-initiated survey of the consumer’s thoughts or feedbacks whereas face-to-face interaction is an organization of a personal meeting between the consumers themselves and/or the company.
There is no one perfect way to market a product or company, but SMM is a smart way to market your company to a target specific audience with a potential to influence other like-minded consumers.
