With the popularity of social media , marketers are gradually shifting their attention to social media. However, does it mean that traditional media is out of date? What is the future of social media and traditional media?

Traditional Media
Traditional Media is consist of television, billboards, magazines, newspapers and radios. most of the channels which are not conducted on the internet. While social media seems to be a very promising industry, it doesn’t mean that traditional media is out. The following are the pros and cons of traditional media:
1. Pros— There are still a lot people who dont know how to use the Internet. Even for those who knows how to use it , people are in the transitional stage to adjust to online marketing. Traditional media is a great way to build trust and credibility. Television can still reach a large amount of population. Elders who are more engaged in watching TVs are also those who are more richer.

2. Cons: it is more expensive to market in traditional media. It is also hard to measure or track the effect of the marketing.Social media is getting popularity these years and the momentum is likely to continue in the future.

Social Media:
It refers to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and other websites. Those websites can bring the attention to their users of our product/service. Companies will pay to advertise in those websites. The pros and cons are as below:
Pros: It is faster and cheaper to spread business information than traditional media. At the same time, social media reaches larger audience than the traditional one.
Cons: Even though internet marketing is generally free, it means it is more competitive than traditional media. Companies will be struggled with how to target their audience effectively.

Working Together:

In the end, it is better to combine social media with traditional media. This can build awareness in both channels and more cost-effective. The proportion of attention and budget depends on the nature of the business. Even though in the future, more companies will focus on social media, it still takes a while to get there.

Save Christmas, Save your flavor

In 2010 , Kraft Foods/Aladdin created a campaign to promote their new chocolate product in Sweden. Aladdin Chocolate box is a well-known brand in Sweden. However, as time passes by, people just get used to its existence. The company decided to launch a new selection of flavors in the box. In order to generate more buzz, they created a campaign called “Save Christmas, Save your favorite flavor.” It asked people to vote for their favorite flavors. Those unfortunate flavors have to go in the end. Moreover, the company gave each flavor a “personality” to activate the personal connection with them.

They set up digital polling locations in major locations and Facebook  Pages and groups, as well as an application to facilitate the interaction. The deep love of chocolate in the Swedish community motivated people to “guard” their favorite flavors. The vast use of social media brings the campaign close to their fans.

In the end, the campaign was a huge success. More people voted for their favorite flavors than for the political election. It was about 5% of the Swedish population participated in. The most sweet result is the sales number:Aladdin’s sales increased by more than 26% during the holiday season.

A campaign can’t succeed if people did not see the relevance to their lives.
“Guard “your favorite flavor is the first incentive. Social media is the assistance or facilitator. It made voting easier and more reachable.

I came across an article called ” The Social Customer, The Social Brand and Social Business” . The article starts with the social media context. It argues that social customers are overwhelmed by social media like Twitter, Facebook ,RSS and etc. This is exactly the way I feel in my daily life. The article pointed out that people  filter  out the noise in order to “consume” the relevant information within a limited amount of time. Social company should think how to target their audience in the most efficient way. The principle  they use in the article is to provide with ” the right content, at the right time, in the right channel to the right customer.” This is also the aspect that people think social media can perform better than the traditional media in terms of marketing.

Another issue about social media is that different departments in a company want to use social media. The overlap of responsibilities can easily create chaos in the system. As mentioned in the class, social media can be used to build customer relationship, deal with consumer complaints , expand business landscape and so on. As a result, marketing department , PR and customer support segments all want to own social media. This requires company to think thoroughly about how to restructure the company .

In the end, the author summarized the roles of social network users as follows:

• The social customer creates value ( purchase, indirectly selling products via advocacy, product feedback)
• The social brand creates value by listening and engaging( relevant content, discounts, real conversations)
• The social business creates value by implementing change internally

The original article is available at : http://www.britopian.com/2012/02/17/the-social-customer-the-social-brand-the-social-business/

I talked about what social marketing is and how they can help us , as well as the measurement tricks. This post is about things to avoid in social marketing strategy. After reading through all these posts, readers can get a thorough understanding of social marketing strategy.

Here, I list 6 things to avoid in your social marketing:

1.Don’t Re-tweet or copy /paste testimonials or compliments: At first glance, people may think it is good idea to spread the ” compliments” to increase people’s perception of certain  “product.” Unfortunately, it results in “unfollow” and complaints.

2. Don’t blast your Facebook friends with a list of irrelevant events: This is very common these days. In order to increase awareness of certain events, your Facebook friends send invitation to all of their friends who may not even in the country. Sometimes, people may block or ignore you from now on. This is not worthwhile.

3. Don’t implement social outreach if you are not good at it: techniques like software, systems or tactics which can automate your friend request, post in your social network are spamming your friends’ page. It makes people feel spammed by your posts. On the other hand, this will ruin your reputation.

4. Don’t expect people to pay much attention to your post: every post should have its target audience. Don’t expect everyone to know about it. It is your target audience who should know .

5. Treat your clients as friends: Don’t blast your clients ! A lot freelancers blast their clients who don’t pay. It is never good to blast people , especially in the business context.

6: Treat your clients as friends: Don’t talking without listening. this is the step to know what your clients want or what the trend in the industry is. Read your client’s posts , analyze it and use it. You can check out what they” like” ,“retweet” or “share”. This can provide a lot information about your client.

Most of the tips above is just common sense. Treat your clients/friends as if they were you. Then, you can get a better understanding of what is appropriate and what is not. Moreover, most of social marketing techniques are from the traditional marketing concepts we learnt. The main difference is the context. However, the principle is the same.

An article about the plague of measuring social media success is found in ClickZ. The article mentions four major hurdles toward effective measurement of social media. The main problems are:

• success and concrete measurement on social media is still hard
• mainly rely on the number of  “fan” or ” like” as a measurement of popularity and success
• ROI  is the top challenge , hard to measure
• uncertain about which tool to use

This is a common problem. Even though it is hard to get the exact or very firm answer for the questions above, the article does suggest some methods to improve the effectiveness of measurement:

• Interaction with your fans: it is not just the number of fans which matter to a brand. It is how influential they are that matters. Brands should interact with the fans to increase brand awareness and interaction.
• Go beyond Brand’Metrics: use more analytic tools or combine social media. the more tools applied , the better result we can get.
• Integrate social analytics and marketing analytics : utilize social media to make spending more effective , generate buzz to improve overall marketing performance