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Social media marketing

  • /
  • Unit 4 - Marketing/
  • 4.5 The seven Ps of the marketing mix/
  • 4.5.3 Promotion/
  • Social media marketing

Social media marketing as a promotional strategy (AO3)

“Ordinary people can spread good and bad information about brands faster than marketers.”
- Ray Johnson (1927 - 1995), American artist

“If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.”
- Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon.com

Digital technology has revolutionised the way in which businesses use promotional strategies, such as the growing use of social media marketing (SMM). Social media marketing is the use of online content that users can upload to a website using a suitable medium (such as a blog, podcast, video, image, slideshow, infographic, or online newsletter). Examples of such platforms include: Facebook , Twitter , Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

SMM enables users to use social media platforms to directly promote their goods and services. It is often considered as a ‘one to many’ method of online communication, with the user owning the content (even if others can respond with ‘likes’ or adding their personal comments). The aim of this is to engage customers and ultimately for them to interact with the product or brand.

SMM has encouraged many individuals and businesses to share online content (including their views, suggestions, reactions, images and videos). The changing technologies have therefore provided people and businesses with a potentially wide-reaching yet cost-effective method of promotion.

It is intended to communicate information, often is a persuasive way, to a broad or even global audience. For example, celebrities are often ‘followed’ on social media by their fans (and customers).

Table 1 - The 10 most followed people on Twitter (2023)

  1. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla,SpaceX, and Twitter (133.7 million followers)

  2. Barack Obama, former President of the United States (133.4 million followers)

  3. Justin Bieber, musician (113.2 million followers)

  4. Katy Perry, musician (108.2 million followers)

  5. Rihanna, musician and actress (108.2 million followers)

  6. Cristiano Ronaldo, professional footballer (108.2 million followers)

  7. Taylor Swift, musician (92.5 million followers)

  8. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India (87.6 million followers)

  9. Lady Gaga (84.7 million followers)

  10. Ellen DeGeneres, entertainer and talk show host (76.8 million followers)

Source: Tweet Binder (Twitter Analytics)

Table 2 - The top 10 people followed on Instagram (2023)

  1. Cristiano Ronaldo, professional footballer (564 million followers)

  2. Lionel Messi, professional footballer (444 million followers)

  3. Selena Gomez, musician and actress (402 million followers)

  4. Kylie Jenner, Hollywood celebrity and entrepreneur (382 million followers)

  5. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Hollywood actor (370 million followers)

  6. Ariana Grande, musician (362 million followers)

  7. Kim Kardashian, Hollywood celebrity and reality TV star (349 million followers)

  8. Beyoncé, musician (301 million followers)

  9. Khloe Kardashian, model and TV celebrity (299 million followers)

  10. Justin Bieber, musician (285 million followers)

Source: Lifestyle Asia

Whilst Twitter and Instagram can be used for social networking and marketing, we wouldn’t expect these celebrities to engage in two-way communications with their hundreds of millions of followers.

SMM is a relatively inexpensive way for businesses to gain promotional exposure and the contents can be easily shared. Hence, many new and small businesses with limited funds for marketing rely on social media marketing to attract customers. However, literally all large firms also have accounts on platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for SMM purposes.

Table 3 - The most popular social media platforms, 2023

Source: Statista: Digital & Trends - Social media usage worldwide

 Watch this video by Erik Qualman (updated annually) which highlights the huge and growing impact of the social media revolution:

Case Study - Facebook: The world's largest social network

Facebook is the world's most popular social network, with over 2.9 billion monthly active users (as of the first quarter of 2022). The platform has been used by its members since 2004 as a way of keeping in touch with friends, families and acquaintances. The highly popular social network is free for the users. So, how does Facebook earn any revenue? In fact, according to the company's website, Facebook's sales revenues in 2019 were a staggering $70.7 billion (which was not significantly less than the gross domestic product of Luxembourg - or more than the combined GDP of Latvia and Uganda!) In the first quarter of 2022, Facebook's total revenue already amounted to $27.9 billion.

Founded in 2004, Facebook is the largest social networking service based on global reach and total active users. Co-founded by Mark Zuckerberg whilst at Harvard University, Facebook was initially only available to Harvard students but quickly expanded to regional universities, high school students and any users aged 13 or over. As of April 2020, India has the largest number of active Facebook users.

It is well known that social network operators like Facebook earn most of their sales from advertising revenues. However, what does this entail exactly for Facebook to earn such huge amounts of advertising revenue?

Advertising revenue is the single largest revenue stream for Facebook. This come mainly from the many businesses that use Facebook as a marketing platform with their advertisements. Facebook ads are published on the screen and are directly targeted at users. For example, if a user "likes" NBA posts and comments about Nike basketball shoes, it is likely that adverts related to the NBA and Nike will appear on the screen of that particular Facebook user. Facebook will clearly charge Nike a large sum of money for this type of advertising and get good returns on their investment.

Due to the potential customer reach to the sheer number of Facebook users, many large companies such as Nike will launch new marketing campaigns and adverts on Facebook before they appear on television or other promotional media.

However, there has been much controversy about Facebook selling the personal data of its users across its various social media platforms. In April 2018, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress (for over 5 hours) addressing questions including how Facebook makes money from user data. Zuckerberg's response to this particular claim was "There's a very common misperception about Facebook - that we sell data to advertisers. We do not sell data to advertisers. We don't sell data to anyone. What we allow is for advertisers to tell us who they want to reach, and then we do the placement." What this ultimately means is that Facebook undoubtedly directly relies on user data to earn its advertising money.

Facebook also owns social media platforms Instagram and WhatsApp. When these users are included, Facebook users account for over a quarter of the world's population.

 Watch this short CNBC documentary about how Facebook makes money, including how the company has evolved to targeted advertising to help businesses drive more sales.

 Teacher only box

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 ATL Activity 1 (Research skills) - SMM on Instagram

Which businesses are the most followed on Instagram? Use the Internet to investigate the businesses with the most followers, and produce a list of the top 10 (in a similar way to the examples of the most followed celebrities above).

According to The Artist Evolution, the most followed businesses on Instagram in 2019 were:

  1. Instagram - The company has 437 million followers.

  2. National Geographic - One of the world's most read magazines with 200 million followers on Instagram.

  3. Nike - The sports apparrel brand has 191 million followers.

  4. Real Madrid - The most followed sports club in the world, with 107 million followers.

  5. FC Barcelona - The arch rivals of Real Madrid, Barcelona has a following of 104 million.

  6. NASA - The 72 million followers enjoy seeing NASA's out-of-this-world pictures on Instagram.

  7. Victoria’s Secret - The fashion brand has 71 million followers.

  8. NBA - The National Basketball Association has 62 million followers, making it the most followed sports league in North America on Instagram.

  9. Marvel - Walt Disney Company's Marvel has 59 million followers on Instagram.

  10. 9GAG - The online platform and social media website for sharing memes, gifs, and viral videos has 57 million followers.

 ATL Activity 2 (Research skills) - Creativity, technology, and promotional strategies

Coca-Cola spends in excess of $2bn a year on marketing. This gives the company huge scope to be creative with its promotional strategies. Watch this short video clip of Coca-Cola's first promotional campaign of 2022 in the UAE called "Magic On Burj Khalifa" to see how changing technology and promotional strategies can work to engage the targeted audience.

"Real Magic" was adopted by Coca-Cola as its new brand identity in 2021 and extended this to the United Arab Emirates in January 2022. A spokesperson for the company said “We can find magic all around us when we come together in unexpected moments that elevate the everyday into the extraordinary. It also acknowledges the many contradictions experienced as new generations find harmony and human connection in a virtual and divided world.”

There was good reason for the Coca-Cola Company to choose The Burj Khalifa - a huge skyscraper of over one hundred floors than can be lit up for people to see their brand. Essentially, the building doubles up as the biggest advertising billboard on the planet! This sets a new benchmark for creativity in using technology for promotional activities.

 Investigate how creativity can be used to make promotional strategies for a business of your choice to stand out from the competition in the marketplace. Be prepared to share your findings with the rest of the class.

 Top tip!

There is growing reliance on the use of social media for promotional purposes. In an ever-more competitive corporate world, businesses that can embrace changing technologies and use their creativity are more likely to stand out from the crowd.

An example is the one show in this short video clip, used by Pepsi in London, UK.

  1. Facebook (2.958 billion)

  2. YouTube (2.514 billion)

  3. WhatsApp (2.1 billion)

  4. Instagram (2.0 billion)

  5. WeChat (1.309 billion)

  6. TikTok (1.051 billion)

  7. Facebook Messenger (931 million)

  8. Douyin (715 million)

  9. Telegram (700 million)

  10. Snapchat (635 million)