Social Media Channels and Digital Marketing:

Social media is relatively new way of digital marketing that both B2B and B2C businesses are using these days. The size of social media marketing has increased tremendously in last few years. Social media marketing is the term marketers used to explain marketing through various platforms which allows people to exchange information. The growth of social media platforms has changed the way people socialize, interact, share information, and do business transactions. Social media has also established new channels for digital marketing as well.Some of the popular social media channels are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flicker, Google+, Pinterest, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Reddit, and Instagram etc. 

The social media channels can be categorized as follows.

·        Social networks: These are consisting of social profiles for example Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn.

·        Content creation: The purpose of these channels is to develop and share content. Examples of such platforms are YouTube, Instagram, Flicker, Pinterest, and Blogs etc.

·        Bookmarking and aggregating: Examples of these can be Reddit, Digg, and Delicious. These have the purpose of social bookmarking and content sharing.

·        Location: Example of this type of channels can be Facebook and Foursquare. These are part of social networks based on locations.

It should be noted that since channels in above categories do not have very clear boundaries, they may overlap. Some platforms can be classified under many categories for example some social networking sites allow members to share photos as well as blogs. Social media channels use new online technologies strategically and innovatively to attain several communication and marketing objectives. This is the reason that we can find several types of social media services within a channel. The following picture shows different types of social media channels.

Social media channels are basically online communication channels which provide community based input, interaction, content and information sharing as well as collaboration. Different types of social media channels include websites and applications which are dedicated to social networking, forums, social bookmarking, micro-blogging etc. These have become necessary part of online life. This is one of the most important reasons that businesses today use social media channels to promote their brands, market products, attract new customers as well as retain existing ones.

Businesses perform marketing activities using social media channels through two methods. One method is free but requires building followers, fans or connections by sharing attractive and useful content, running contests, and generally engaging users. The other method is through paid advertising. For example, in this method businesses may use Facebook advertisements, Google Adwords, or Twitter accounts to market their products or services on such channels. These social media channels take advantage of social networking to help businesses enhancing brand recognition by increasing their customer reach. Businesses do it by creating compelling contents which users will share with others in their social networks. Businesses also use analytical tools available for social media channels to gather data from blogs and social media websites and analyze that information to make effective business decisions. One of the general uses of these analytical tools is to analyze client habits and preferences to provide better marketing and customer services.

Following are brief descriptions of few famous social media channels.

Twitter: It is the most famous free micro-blogging service that was launched in July, 2006. It allows registered users to broadcast 140-characters short posts called tweets which are usually short thoughts or links to interesting articles. Users can follow other user’s tweets.

Facebook: It is undoubtedly the most dominant personal social network in the world with over one billion registered users. Businesses want to use these audiences for their marketing purposes. It is also free social networking channel that allows registered users to create profiles, upload photos and video, send messages, and keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues.

LinkedIn: It is also a social networking channel; however it is designed specifically for the business community. It allows registered members to establish networks of people they know and trust professionally.

YouTube: Its users upload 100 hours’ worth of video every minute, and 4 billion hours of videos are watched every month (YouTube, 2013), making it the prime social video-sharing site on the web. YouTube offers many features to video up-loaders and viewers, and is simple to use. Marketers can promote video content directly through YouTube or advertise next to (or during) content on YouTube.

References:

Bendror, Y. Which Social Media Channels Should I Use For My Business? Retrieved Nov. 05, 2015, Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/social-media-channels-business-223554094.html

Chitwood, L. (2014). Which social media platform is best for your business?  Retrieved Nov. 05, 2015. Retrieved from http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2014/03/05/social-media-platform-best-business/

Newman, D. (2014). Understanding The Channels: An Overview Of Social, Mobile, Digital And Traditional Marketing For B2B. Retrieved Nov. 05, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites#/sites/danielnewman/2014/11/04/understanding-the-channels-an-overview-of-social-mobile-digital-and-traditional-marketing-for-b2b/

Roberts, M.L., Zahay, D. (2013), Internet marketing: Integrating online and offline strategies (3rd ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Stokes, Rob., The minds of quirk, e-marketing: The essential guide to marketing in a digital world (5th ed.). Quirk eMarketing (Pty) Ltd.

              

Shazia Karrar