Social media fails to meet the expectation of early marketing publicity

The enterprise's communication strategy has been adjusted from emphasizing the number of fans to emphasizing the quality.

In May 2013, Ritz Carlton Hotel purchased advertising space on Facebook to promote its own brand page. A few days later, the dissatisfied executives decided to stop the promotion - not because they didn't have enough fans, but on the contrary, they quickly gained too many fans in a very short time.

"What we are worried about is that with the growing number of fans, our interaction with the target group will be discounted," explained Allison Sitch, vice president of global public relations at Ritz Carlton Hotel.

At present, the hotel has about 498000 Facebook fans, and the number of fans of some competitors is even several times higher than it. The Ritz Carlton Hotel does not want to continue to rapidly increase the number of fans, but is willing to spend more time to analyze their own Social media Interact and carefully study guests' preferences. In addition, they also contacted people who were worried about spending and never stayed in hotels.

The Ritz Carlton Hotel demonstrates the transformation of corporate social media strategy. For many years, enterprises have been pursuing the number of Facebook fans and Twitter followers. Now, many enterprises attach more importance to quality than quantity. They are monitoring and analyzing the brand reference rate, and then using the data to help the business of the enterprise.

just being social

Keep "social"

Businesses are taking a more critical view of social media and its influence. According to a Gallup survey, most respondents said that social media has no influence on purchase decisions.

Reasons for using social media

94% keep in touch with friends and family

29% Follow the trend/discover product evaluation and information

20% comment on current hot topics and fresh topics/write product reviews

The impact of social media on purchase decisions

62% had no impact at all

30% has some impact

5% Great impact

3% Don't know

Data source: Gallup's survey of 18525 American adults from December 12, 2012 to January 22, 2013; Error:+/- 1%

"The era of simply chasing fans and followers is over. Now, what you need to care about is what social media can bring to your enterprise and real business goals." said Jan Rezab, chairman of Socialmakers AS. Socialmakers AS is a social media monitoring company headquartered in Portugal.

As early as 2005-2009, many enterprises joined Facebook as another brand website of their own, with various links and contact information posted on it and used to monitor consumer complaints. Then, they fell into the game of chasing the number of fans, trying to accumulate the number of fans, thinking that they were building a stable marketing management Channels. However, this is not the case.

"Not as many enterprises expect, the market influence of social media is far from strong." Gallup Inc. released a report on this subject on Monday, concluding that.

Gallup said that 62% of the more than 18000 American consumers surveyed believe that social media has no influence on their purchase decisions. The other 30% said they were affected to some extent. American companies spent $5.1 billion on social media advertising in 2013, and Gallup believes that "consumers are very good at blocking brand related content on Facebook and Twitter." (Gallup's survey was conducted from December 2012 to January 2013 through web pages and emails, with an error of+/- 1%.)

According to a research conducted by Nielsen Holdings NV last year, compared with advertisements on social media, consumers around the world believe that the advertising channels are television, print media, radio, billboards and movie trailers.

Gallup said that the brand mistakenly believed that consumers welcomed themselves into their social media life. Then release hard selling content, which makes many people feel disgusted.

Recently, Facebook's adjustment to the way users subscribe to news has greatly affected the brand's expectation of reaching the target group. Facebook no longer presents information in chronological order, but displays different content according to users' reading expectations.

The result: according to a social media company recently acquired by Socialmakers Data analysis According to the survey of the company EdgeRank Checker, in March, the brand's posts on Facebook were only delivered to 6.5% of fans, down 16% from February 2012.

Indian Road Cafe, located in New York, has invested about 5000 dollars in advertising on Facebook, and currently has 13000 fans. "But the result is very disappointing," said Jason Minter, a partner, But it will be more targeted and seek a new website and other digital communication methods, rather than simply expanding the size of Facebook fans.

A spokesman for Facebook said the company needs to adjust its focus. "What enterprises should consider is to change their own communication methods," he said. "Fans should be a means for enterprises to achieve communication results, and the number of fans is not the ultimate goal." The spokesman said that Facebook has been open and frank about the narrowing of the spread of brand posts.

According to the survey of EdgeRank Checker, in March, the brand's posts on Facebook were only delivered to 6.5% of fans, down 16% from February 2012.

According to the data of Socialmakers, enterprises can reach more "non" fans on Facebook. With the sharing of content among friends, the ranking of posts on Facebook continues to rise. Compared with content publishing, this can achieve higher customer conversion rate.

Another reason why enterprises no longer value the number of fans is that this number is easy to cheat. Investigators said that many fans are fake or virtual, and the purpose of creating these accounts is to increase the number of fans.

Andrea Stroppa, an Italian network security researcher, said that he found that some emerging websites provide Facebook fans or Twitter followers with low fees. After the experiment, Mr. Stroppa spent 42 cents to get 700 tweets, and 7 cents to get 100 likes for a post on Facebook.

Although enterprises are adjusting their social media strategies, they will continue to publish advertisements on Facebook. Facebook's net revenue on social networks almost tripled in the first quarter, with total revenue up 72%.

Twitter said that enterprises can maintain a large number of fans and also have effective interaction with users. "Participation is the key, which can then increase your target group," said Ross Hoffman, Twitter's brand strategy director. "The market Marketing People are responsible for creating good content, and we should also exercise this skill in the process of cooperation with brands and public relations companies. "

In fact, some brands attach great importance to the fan base of social media. "We want to get a lot of fans," said Ben Blatt, executive director of ABC TV digital strategy at Walt Disney Co. Dancing with the Stars ）”The Facebook page received 5.2 million likes. Mr. Blatt said that we can use such a large fan group to know whether a topic or an episode is loved by the audience through comparison.

Comcast, a cable TV and media company, conducted in-depth analysis of data from 11 different sources, including which consumers click to open links, participate in social media interactions, or discuss brand products and services. These tools help Comcast understand industry trends, such as the quality of services nationwide or regionally, or the creativity of developing new functions. Robin Dagostino, head of social media at Comcast, said.

The NBA has 23 million fans on Facebook. However, NBA executives are more concerned about how to use social media interaction rather than the number of fans. During the game, the NBA's social media team will monitor the interaction of netizens on various social networks and release highlights of the game in real time, hoping to urge people to turn on the TV to watch the game. They monitor fan comments on social media to find out what fans think of an advertisement, or the best time to sell jerseys.

"We want to give back more things to people by discussing fans," said Melissa Rosenthal Brenner, senior vice president of digital media of NBA League.

Source: PR Newswires
Translator: Cathy