Social Media & Brands!

It’s no secret that social media has become a large part of our every day lives with 60% of Australians connecting through social media every day, so it only makes sense for brands to jump on board with social media and target and connect with consumers through this growing platform. According to the Yellow Social Media Report, more businesses are using social media platforms, including Facebook and LinkedIn with 51% of small businesses being active on social media platforms, 58% of medium businesses and 85% of large businesses.

The Yellow Social Media Report also reported that more than half of consumers trust brands that interact with their consumers in a positive way and similarly, more than half of consumers trust brands who regularly update their content. This suggests that digital marketers must be active in their social media platforms to gain consumers trust.

Firstly, I’d like to run through the three types of media that brands possess and share some examples of these!

1 – Paid Media – This refers to what the company is paying an external party to put out there about their brand. This including traditional advertising techniques such as print media, radio and television.

As you can see in this television advertisement, Coles has paid for this advertisement to be on television and they portraying a very positive image about their brand to the viewers, and are in complete control over the content in this advertisement.

2 – Owned Media – This is media that is owned by the brand but not paid for through a third party. This includes the company website or their Facebook fan page where the brand is in control of the content they share.

Here’s a screenshot of Coles owned media – their website: http://www.coles.com.au. Through the website they can share their current promotions and their catalogue items which is convenient for their customers.

3 – Earned Media – Communication about the brand from a third party. This is commonly found in the form of word of mouth or online comments/posts on forums about a brand. However, with earned media, the brand has no control over the content, meaning the content can be positive (beneficial for the brand) but also negative (detrimental to the brand)

This is an example of a positive form of Coles earned media. Coles was experiencing difficulties where their online store was down for almost 3 days and gave their customers $15 to compensate for the inconvenience. This generated a lot of positive earned media for Coles in relation to the compensation, however many consumers were not impressed with the technology failure resulting in a significant amount negative earned media

An article written by Kaplan and Haenlein called ‘Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media‘ explored some way digital marketers can improve their social media presence.

These include (but are not limited to):

1. Consistency and alignment: It’s important for digital marketers to ensure consistency across their different types of media. For example, if they are portraying high levels of professionalism on their website, this professionalism will also be expected within all types of online communication from the brand.
2. Choose platforms carefully: Some brands may be more suitable to used LinkedIn opposed to Facebook, so it’s important for marketers to consider where their target audience are most likely to be found, and put their efforts towards a smaller amount of platforms than to be everywhere.
3. Be active: Digital marketers should be posting and using their social media platforms regularly to improve the trust consumers have in relation to the brand.
4. Be unprofessional(ish): Although remaining a level of professionalism is important, the users of social media inherently aren’t overly professional on social media, therefore brands should blend in and consider being reflective of their consumers level of professionalism (see Coles reply above for an example)

Do you have any examples of any really good or not so good digital marketing content? If so leave a comment below to share them!