https://ddddadvertising.music.blog/2020/01/20/example-post/
(Bendor-Samuel, P. (2018) states multiple components comprise a digital platform typically a data-ingestion engine, a machine-learning transactional engine to perform tasks or tools that allow digital platforms to talk to other software. These components must be aligned and integrated to create better experiences for users. This links to social media as companies and businesses will use online apps to promote and advertise their service and product, social media websites uses cookies which allows them to see previous search histories and therefore be able to advertise a specific product to the specific user. This means the tools allow for these platforms to integrate with others to increase the users experience. Social media can be viewed either on the internet of mobile based channels, some examples of platforms; Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn, Snapchat, YouTube and WhatsApp, a lot of these are used to connect with others and ecommerce advertising. The most popular platform ranked to date is Facebook stated by (Lua, A. 2019). Facebook is the biggest social media site around in today’s society with more than two billion users every month, making it the best social media platform.
Social media platforms have penetrated into people’s everyday routines, changing the norms of social interaction. The idea behind social media is to create channels across the globe to create a sense of community whereby users have the ability to post, share and express ideas (Pizano, G. (2019). Hashtags being a technique associated with social media, can be seen to be used across all platforms to draw attention, to organize, and to promote. A hashtag “#” written in front of a word or phrase without any spaces would make a post more interactive, that could be useful when promoting a campaign on a platform to appeal to a wider target audience stated by (Barnhart, B. (2018). A technique Facebook allows users to do is create an event, whether it’s public to everyone or private to the users friends. On Facebook events, users are able to expand the reach of their audience by using Ads to allow users to drive awareness of the event (Vaccaro, S. (2018), targeting the audience dependent on their age, location and gender.
Social media offers various benefits to companies and users of the platforms as it allows them to reach out and connect on a more personal level and gain more attention of new potential customers. It allows for a business to personally brand themselves and connect with millions of users, especially with today’s world where traditional advertising is not used as much as it was. Recent surveys show that social media also enables businesses to get exposure, traffic and gain market insights. (Newberry, C. 2018) presents a view of of digital usage around the world in 2018 with the amount of people using the platforms.
The advantages of companies and users using social media are that it will increase brand awareness as well as humanize your brand more, this means adults don’t trust brands until they see ‘real world proof’, more advantages are that it allows businesses can generate trends, boost sales especially through linking up with social media influencers the gain more coverage, this allows for the business to use more ‘real life’ reviews on their product or service, with the use of social media this will help boost sales and increase revenue. The use of social media also allows businesses to keep an eye on other businesses as well as being able to see what they are doing. Target marketing includes demographic information, geography, language and other online behaviours, this means they can craft specific messages that will best engage the groups of potential customers and other businesses. The way to target advertise is with set prices by paying for the exact amount of viewers you are trying to reach making it a niche way to market.
The rise of social media is ever growing with more and more users logging in each day, social media has changed the world and the way businesses and people work themselves. (Ortiz-Ospina, E. 2019) suggests ‘social media platforms are used by one-in-three people in the world, and more than two-thirds of all internet users. The rapid and vast adoption of these technologies is changing how we find partners, work, many other resources and how we access information from the news, and how we organise to demand political change. Thus, making the use of social media important to move forward in today’s society.
Privacy is easily one of the biggest critiques of social media. (Joseph Walther, 2002) identifies ideas as to why he makes the point that people have “a misplaced presumption that online behaviour is private”. This means people unknowingly post sensitive information, believing once they delete it, it is gone forever. However, in reality once information is online it can always be found. This can then lead to the theft and manipulation of data, as seen with Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica data breach. Facebook “failed to safeguard its user’s data and that it failed to be transparent about how the data was harvested by others”. (Hearn A & Pegg D, 2018) Facebook’s dramatic failure shows that regardless of the size and reputation of a company, data breaches are still a huge possibility.
Another critique of social media platforms is that they can easily lead to cyberbullying. Numerous data studies indicate that social media is the favoured medium for cyberbullies. (Cook S, 2019) Anonymous or fake accounts can be made so easily with the real identity of the person extremely difficult to trace. Although over recent years, huge emphasis has been placed on trying to reduce cyberbullying. A study in 2007 found that “32 percent of teens have been victim to some form of cyberbullying”. (Cook S, 2019) Cook then goes on to say that by 2016 the number is still very similar. This infers that cyberbullying is still very easy to do, regardless of the increased attempts to prevent it.
Many organisations and companies understand that in order to reach a wider audience they should implement the use of social media marketing into their advertising campaigns. Although many organisations acknowledge the need for an active social media profile the challenge they often face is identifying how to effectively do so (Hanna, R. Rohm, A. Crittenden, V. 2011).
An example of how social media was used in a recent campaign can be seen in the Mercedes-Benz USA #GirlsHaveNoLimits campaign that was launched in 2019. Mercedes-Benz was founded in 1926 (Mercedes-Benz, N.D), since then it has created a strong a reliable brand identity for itself offering consumers luxury cars. It is recognisable and successful worldwide therefore not all of its campaigns revolve around increasing sales. For this campaign Mercedes-Benz partnered with Mattel, ‘a global learning, development and play company’ (Mattel, 2020) and National Girls Collaborative Project, in order to erase the social stigma of ‘that’s for boys, not for girls’ and to encourage ‘girls to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math careers’ (Nathaniel, M. 2019).
Across the US, workshops were organised for young girls where they were able to ‘engineer toy racetracks, design cars and engage with female role models’ (Nathaniel, M. 2019) this allowed them to expand their visions for their future. As a reminder that girls can do anything Mercedes-Benz USA and Mattel gifted ‘50,000 Matchbox die-cast toy replicas of a very special Mercedes-Benz 220SE to participating children’ (Nathaniel, M. 2019)
The social video that was launched as a part of this campaign was shared on all of the brands social profiles with the hashtag #GirlsHaveNoLimits, including Instagram, where it received praise from fans. The hashtag was also shared on Twitter, with different users participating in the discussions of the campaign. Mercedes-Benz utilised Instagram’s IGTV feature which allowed them to upload a longer video to showcase the campaigns effect on young girls. The video was shared along with an informative caption:
“This #NationalsSTEMDay we’re partnering with @NCGProject to bring Ewy Rosqvist’s inspiring message to thousands of girls nationwide. And we’re not just sharing her story. We’ve partnered with @mattel to transform her championship Mercedes-Benz 220 SE into a Matchbox car – A powerful reminder to girls that they have no limits” (Instagram, 2019)
On Instagram the video received over 19,000 views (Instagram, 2019) and over 8,000 views on YouTube (Mercedes-Benz x Matchbox: National STEM Day, 2019). The engagement towards the campaign was not overwhelming, however the aim was encouraging younger girls to follow STEM careers and believe in themselves as well as to break the social stigma.
The reason this client should invest in social media is because it allows a full insight into the world of online marketing and how it is beneficial to the current and potential users as well as companies that use social media, this is shown through the use of brand awareness and how the brand situates itself in the market through social media thus making the product/ service known around the world more potentially increasing the sales and revenue off the specific company, especially through engaging with the potential customers in the correct manor in order to grab their attention and help boost their decision in purchasing their goods. This therefore with the clients help they can afford to pay for more online advertising, boosting their portfolio. However, this allows the investor to gain a wider clientele, this increases more knowledgeable aspects and creates new contacts whether it’s with a business or a fellow user, due to the rapid growth of social media investing sooner rather than later is most likely to see a higher return from the initial investment generating potential profit. (Frost, P. 2015) summaries three main reason why investing time and money in to social media will be beneficial, the ‘three reasons are to boost your channels, control your reputation and how people see you and how you want to be seen and keeping your audience engaged’. These three reasons are ideal as it will not only help with the investment but increase the investors profile and link the investor to many more people and companies. Furthermore, another reason for investing is the campaign and how it is portrayed to users as well as how the critiques will respond, everything is there to be seen so this makes it easier for the client or users to adapt to what needs hanging through primary research.
Deep, Dark and Dirty Digital Advertising Agency 