93% of marketers use social media for businesses. With 1.6bn monthly active users on Facebook, 700mn on Instagram, 500mn registered users on Linkedin and more than 300mn on Twitter and Google +, this is not surprising. So, how is social media important to businesses and is it always positive?
1. It creates brand awareness
Businesses use social media for 3 main reasons:
Owning a social media page is essential for a brand to create visibility and helps build up the brand. This is called owned-media, because the brand controls the channel. For instance, 83% of luxury brands have a presence on Pinterest. A presence on social media will generate traffic to the brand’s website and can often increase sales. Almost half of web users look towards social media to make a purchase and 20% of shoppers are influenced by a retailer’s Facebook page in their buying decision.
2. Social media can support or backlash a campaign
The characteristic of a viral campaign is that it is widely shared on social media. When a campaign becomes popular through word-of-mouth (WOM), it is called earned media because customers become the channel. People might share a campaign giving positive feedback (i.e. Heineken), while other times there might be a massive backlash (i.e. Dove). It is a two-sided story, because brands cannot control earned media.
Last month, Heineken launched the “Worlds apart campaign” which generated positive WOM due to its powerful message: the power of connecting when political divides. In a three week-period it has been views 12 million times on Youtube. It was about sharing a drink with people who had completely opposite views on controversial issues such as feminism, LGBT community or climate change. The ad showed 2 strangers taking part in a real-life experiment, collaborating at first and then faced with each other; having the opportunity and choice to discuss or leave the room. In my opinion, the video triggers an emotion response. Therefore, the tagline “open your mind, open your world” has been widely shared on Facebook and commented on on Twitter.
Reactions to the Heineken campaign on Twitter and Facebook
At the same time, Dove took its “Real Beauty Campaign” to the product itself. It specifically designed body wash bottles to fit different body types: with 6 different shapes and sizes with the aim of “spreading beauty confidence”. Unfortunately, consumers were confused and thought it shamed more the body than it boosted confidence. They backfired on Twitter, mocking the campaign. This generated a negative image for Dove, which missed the point, encouraging women to be defined by their body types.
Reactions to the Dove campaign on Twitter
3. Social media builds relationships with customers
It is a channel where companies can speak directly to and with consumers. Users will listen to what a brand is saying and will be more receptive to messages on social media than with traditional ads. In addition, it is a faster and easier way to share visual content and videos and to tell a story. It also helps to gain valuable consumer insight and feedback from comments on Facebook. As a brand, you can quickly respond to customer complaints. As 42% of consumers expect a response within an hour. When you have a presence on social media, you make it easier for your customers to find and connect with you. Therefore, you can gain new customers but also it increases brand loyalty – creating communities of fans on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. The #ShareaCoke campaign is a good example of building strong relationships with the customers. Consumers were sharing pictures of their personalised Coke bottles on social media platforms. Coke branded bottles with the 150 most popular names and ended up selling 250 million named bottles in one summer. Lately, chatbots have been a great way for companies to engage in an innovative way with users on Facebook Messenger.
Do you see any others points how social media can affect a brand? Do you think that it is worth it to be present online? Should brands take a political stance?
Marketing Insights 
I agree that social media is a crucial tool for brands to develop and maintain a strong, interactive relationship with their customers. I personally believe that brands should avoid taking political stances as it is often very controversial, and sometimes things can be misinterpreted or blown out of proportion. Plus, once a brand takes a stance on a topic, customers who oppose their view may decide to stop being loyal to the brand and this may ‘define’ the brand in their mind. I think brands need to be careful and avoid controversial topics, and ensure that if they do decide to take a stance, they deal with it sensitively and believe their customer base will be willing to accept their view.
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That’s a fair point. By being apolitical, brands decide to be neutral and avoid the risk of being backlashed or losing some customers that might disagree.
However, when companies do take a political stance and it’s successful, they gain in brand resonance and customers tend to be more loyal. Airbnb is an example when they launched their half-ring to promote marriage equality (in April 2017), supporting the LGBT community. They received a lot of endorsement and good publicity from this campaign.
But in my opinion, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages gained in such a campaign. You never know what to expect when a campaign goes viral, because customers are ruling it!
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I think social media nowadays is like the most powerful tool in promoting brand and communicating with your market because that’s where people mainly spend their time at for online anyway. It gives great control to consumers like Facebook which are usually user generated content, which could be a real double edged sword like the united airlines incident which in my opinion wasn’t handled very well. Sometimes brand just want to promote their brand and ended up being viral, whether it’s in a good or bad way. They still got their brand out and that was the main objective. The other advantage that I could see would be the collection of data about consumers in the market which can be used to form future business strategy. Regardless, if the brand objective is just to spread brand awareness, being viral is still the most efficient way in my opinion although it’s hard to control.
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Social media is surely is important to companies. Wonder what will be the next thing that will be as huge as social media nowadays.
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I agree Jack! Virality is often out of companies’ hands and is so unpredictable! Too much planning often doesn’t end in a viral campaign.
Another tool used by businesses on social media is pay-per-click ads. As you mention, they gather information on user based on a user’s profile, likes and interests and can target their ads towards them on social media. For instance, cookies allow to send my information from my online shopping website to Instagram. When I search clothes online, the clothing item “magically” reappears in my sponsored ads. Personal information is essential for companies, but as we know, marketers need to be careful on how they use our information in order to maintain a trustworthy relationship.
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Great post! Social media is essential to many companies who want to appear active and relevant! I do think that brands need to be aware of what they are posting on social media and shouldn’t have a political stance or have a very strong opinion on certain subjects that could be touchy for consumers, as there will be too many consumers who don’t agree and this could negatively affect their image. They need to make sure they’re focusing on the brand itself and how they can positively contribute to society and consumers.
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From what you have said, I agree that brands should focus on their brand mantra – message which is consistent with their values. Brands should not take a political stance in order to gain new customers or make existing customers happy. They should only do so when it is in line with the company’s values, as a consequence building a strong relationship with their customers. I believe customers are not looking for companies to be good or ethical, but rather truthful and honest!
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