Critical Essay: Pros And Cons Of Social Media Marketing

Question

Task: Write a critical essay on the topic in your discipline, as outlined below. Draw on the four readings you wrote about in your Assessment 2 Annotated Bibliography and find another TWO scholarly sources of your own to support your critical discussion. You must use at least six scholarly sources in your critical essay – the four from your Assessment 2 and at least two you find yourself.

Answer

Introduction : Social Media marketing is defined as the utilisation of the corporate marketing principles and norms in order to improve the wellbeing of the people and the environment in which the organisation operates its business. The concept of social marketing adapts a corporate approach but this is in the case for different outcomes and it can be said that social marketing research tends to be more thorough than compared to corporate research because integrating continuing individual and change in social behaviour is more multifaceted. The purpose of the essay is to identify a set of advantages and disadvantages plus the issues that deal with marketers and practitioners to apply the principles of social media marketing in the specific business field. There are some issues that will be outlined in this essay including the difficulty level of social marketing, conducting market analysis and difficulty in market segmentation and every individual issue will be evaluated in accordance with the decision-making sectors of the organisation.

Overall, the approach of social marketing relates to how specifically a business organisation portrays itself on the different platforms of social media in order to achieve the desired goals and objectives and in the modern era, a majority of the business organisations are amalgamating their content marketing with social marketing.

Discussion : The major benefit of social marketing is that it results in effective marketing and exceptional consumer service via generating interest and favourability among the potential followers and users who tend to more responsive to the activities of the business organisation than compared to a bland marketing approach (Whiting and Deshpande, 2014). In the modern era of digitalisation, a majority of the business organisations are creatively implementing social media marketing to actively promote its products and services without influencing its potential consumers to feel like they are overwhelmed by the promotional marketing initiatives and schemes. The leading organisations operating in any industry generates maximum awareness via strategically positioning the promotional advertisements and posts within the informative posts because this is one of the most effective ways of spreading awareness and fame regarding the business. For example, Tourism Australia is one such brand whose social media channels are implemented to promote tourism and encourage travellers across the whole world plus with a continuous stream of informative content offering from Aussies, the brand has gathered enough collective content to utilise them for years (tourism.australia.com, 2019). Social media marketing helps in generating enormous awareness regarding the business while providing the business organisation with the opportunity to constantly emphasize its products and services in the operating market.

Another benefit of social media marketing is that it helps in devising a social environment for the business organisation and as well as for the potential consumers via a strong social networking forum. It can be said that the bigger and more involved the audience is on the different platforms or networks of social media, the easier it is for the business organisation to achieve the desired marketing goals and objectives (Alharbie, 2015). A strong social networking forum facilitates the business organisation to receive significant feedbacks and reviews about the business as it enables the business to acknowledge the specific areas of improvement and their associated strengths. The concept of social media marketing addresses the purpose of making it easy for potential consumers to filter specific information regarding the different brands and their offered products or services. For example, Redbull is one such brand that has managed to accumulate over more than 75k followers on the social media platforms and the brand utilises its official application to promote its branded occasions and events (redbull.com, 2019). An important fact regarding social media marketing is that if the feedbacks and reviews of the potential consumers hold so much importance to the organisation, then going social is necessary and beneficial.

In the modern era of business field, consumers now expect business firms to manage their demands and expectations via social media and this provides the business organisation with the opportunity to provide excellent consumer service that keeps the followers satisfied and loyal. A strong investment in the consumer service segment of the business will help in building healthy relationships between the organisation and the potential consumers plus with the help of social media marketing, the issues and challenges of consumer service can be tackled. A majority of the Australian consumers are social media users and this provides the platform to solve queries and exchange reviews regarding the specific product or service and this justifies that social media marketing strategy is important to be implemented by the business management (Sigala, 2012). For example, Oporto is a fast-food eatery franchise whose headquarter is located in Australia and it was founded by Antonio Cerqueria in the year 1986 (oporto.com.au, 2019). The hospitality organisation recently promoted its store’s latest penguin format to make the brand’s official Bondi burger more accessible to consumers all across the country and solve consumer queries online. Overall, it can be acknowledged that social media enables immediate communication between the two concerned parties and helps in managing reviews and feedbacks.

In the business world, social media marketing is one of the rapid altering segments in the landscape of marketing and along with its benefits, there are certain features that the business organisations need to be aware of in order to successfully implementing social media marketing. The advantages and disadvantages offered by social media marketing are that a majority of its probability relies on the type of business or market the company is operating on. A major disadvantage associated with social media marketing is that it tarnishes the image and reputation of the brand via negative reviews exploring its way onto the different platforms of social media and this provides the consumers with the chance to convey their disappointment (Godey et al., 2016). For example, the personal care brand Dove which is mainly famous for encouraging women and paying commitment on natural beauty standards had to face criticisms regarding a discriminative post made by them on Facebook. The post was regarding an advertisement showing a black complexion woman transforming into a white complexion girl after consuming the brand's body lotion product (independent.co.uk, 2019). The content of the advertisement went against the brand’s motto of demonstrating that all beauty is natural beauty by screening an individual transforming into a different race and this insulted a large segment of the potential consumer segment.

Another disadvantage associated with social media marketing is that it is time-consuming and this is due to the fact that it takes times for the consumers to appreciate and sharing or exchanging of reviews could take time (Kelly et al., 2015). This is the main reason why business organisations should appropriately allocate different resources including time and money to ensure constant posting or exchanging of artistic posts and before investing in its digital marketing strategy, it is required to consider the impact of the system on the operations and business of the organisation. For example, on the Australian National Day of Remembrance Woolworth with all the best plans and considerations attempted to do something on the auspicious occasion but only to deal with a severe backlash. A remembrance campaign was started by the brand with a picture of brave Anzac soldiers and a caption saying "Fresh in our Memories" but the only problem was that the social media marketing stunt was rejected by the consumers (dailymail.co.uk, 2019). The advertisement or marketing measure was rejected and due to this, the brand had to deal with heavy criticisms for bringing the name of the soldiers in business to promote awareness. This enforced the business company, Woolworth, to pay a huge compensation and this proves that social media marketing should not hamper the in-depth and valued sentiments or feelings of the potential consumers despite the intentions being good for the community.

Conclusion
It can be concluded from the 2016 Sensis report that 88% of the Australian access the web on a regular basis, out of which a majority i.e. 70% of the users are present on social media and 96% of the users enjoy Facebook as the most prominent social media platform. A probability of 80% large business organisations based in the country Australia has a strong presence in the social media sector as compared to the 49% small and medium-sized enterprises. Overall, it can be concluded that social media marketing can prove to be a highly effective mean to communicate with the potential consumers but it can also backlash due to the disadvantages that the companies need to be aware of. It can be acknowledged from the essay that effectiveness in social media marketing involves being innovative and tactical in approach and hence, it is important for the business organisation to interact with the consumers online for gaining reviews and information regarding their demand and expectations from the brand. Therefore, social media and the digitalised world continue to alter and develop to provide consumers with the best alternatives and options. Social media marketing essay assignments are being prepared by our marketing assignment help experts from top universities which let us to provide you a reliable best assignment help service.

Reference List
Alharbie, A., 2015. Business growth thru social media marketing. International Journal of Innovation and Applied Studies, 13(4), p.873.

dailymail.co.uk (2019). Woolworths escapes a fine after it breached Anzac Day hours. [online] Mail Online. Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3600406/Woolworths-escapes-fine-breached-Anzac-Day-laws-opened-early-cook-chicken-bake-bread.html [Accessed 1 Jun. 2019].

Godey, B., Manthiou, A., Pederzoli, D., Rokka, J., Aiello, G., Donvito, R. and Singh, R., 2016. Social media marketing efforts of luxury brands: Influence on brand equity and consumer behavior. Journal of business research, 69(12), pp.5833-5841.

independent.co.uk (2019). Dove's 'racist' advert is causing outrage. [online] The Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/dove-racist-advert-ongoing-controversy-facebook-body-wash-commercial-unilever-a7989956.html [Accessed 1 Jun. 2019].

Kelly, B., Vandevijvere, S., Freeman, B. and Jenkin, G., 2015. New media but same old tricks: food marketing to children in the digital age. Current obesity reports, 4(1), pp.37-45.

Whiting, A. and Deshpande, A., 2014. Social Media Marketing: A Myth or a Necessity. Journal of Applied Business & Economics, 16(5).

sociic.com (2019). Social Media Marketing. [online] SOCIIC. Available at: https://sociic.com/ [Accessed 2 Dec. 2019].