III.8. BRANDING THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA
More and more companies nowadays use the online social networking scene, by
offering direct links from their corporate websites to Facebook,Twitter, blog and
other social media applications and use these tools to promote brands and support
the creation of brand communities. A study by Cone (2008) (http://www.coneinc.
com/) shows that 93% of social media users believe that companies should have
a social media presence, while 85% of them think that companies should interact
with customers via Social Networking Scene. Notwithstanding the fact to mention
that researches show that brand communities established on social media have
positive effects on customer/product, customer/brand, customer/company and
customer/other customers relationships, which in turn have positive effects on
brand trust, and trust has positive effects on brand loyalty.
The most well-known social media platforms that companies use in order to promote and enhance their brand are: Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, blogs, Foursquare.
Let’s take a look on what a company can gain by branding though social media:
Networking
Create Brand
Communities
Public
Relations
Customer
Service
Reputation
Management
More people talk
about your online
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More immediately
service / increase
your business
porfolio
Social media
enables you to take
your message to
customers directly
Activate your fans
and give them
something to do
You can use social
networking to develop relationships
online that you’d
be unlikely to have
otherwise
But is digital presence enough?
Having a website and a social media accounts for your company are seems to be
not enough!! Companies nowadays adopt new approaches in order to promote and
enhance their digital footprint. Companies adopt and implement their own custom
digital strategy that addresses their specific needs in order to increase their web
traffic.
The art of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), and
Social Media Marketing (SMM) can help companies to get more than just clicks –to
get more business. Whether a company is looking to increase organic traffic on
search engines, run a successful advertising campaign on Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, etc., or simply trying to check if digital marketing services might be the answer
for their business there approaches will be helpful.
SEO is an optimization methods which help improve website’s ability to be listed
on the first or second page of organic search results. SEM, involves paid advertisements such as Adwords, Bing ads, Yahoo and any other methods of online advertising. This process involves the creation of campaigns and measuring results.
SMO stands for Social Media Optimization and help companies increase the visibility of their social media profiles, their social networking activity and their published
content so that it is found by people searching for information and resources that
relate to your content.
In conclusion, a short review among the 3 approaches indicates that SEM is method
which requires paid advertisement. Although SEM will get you results fast, it is limited to the size of your budget. SEO and SMO are more long term solutions which, if
done right, can continually bring in the desired results for your business. So which
is right for you? This all depends on your business goals, as well as the time and
money that you want to spend.
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