What are the goals of social media marketing or viral dissemination of messages?
Social media marketing has two main goals. First, you can use social media marketing to spread information. You have to create viral news or pack the messages into viral containers to be distributed by the hubs or influentials themselves. It is essential to understand how messages spread virally through the Word of Mouth. To explain why people apply messages and why specific contents spread better than others, the memetics thesis developed by Richard Dawkins in 1976 must be briefly discussed. A meme is a small piece of information that is so contagious to other people that they ingest it and spread it like a pathogen. The memes use the ” infected ” social networks to apply in the form of ideas, inventions, ceremonies, customs, religions, technologies, fashions, or buzzwords.
The replication mechanism is decisive for the transmission of the messages. Since you cannot analyze and interpret everything in your environment, people like to “replicate” and pass the replica on as part of their attitude. A memetic selection takes place. Some memes attract attention and are saved and shared with other people, while others are not copied.
If you want to learn more about the viral spread of messages, I recommend the book “The Power of Memes” by Susan Blackmore
and Viral Marketing: How to trigger word of mouth and use it profitably.
The second goal of social media marketing is to create customer loyalty and PR or a social bond with the brand. My literature tip for this is: “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” by David Meerman Scott.
These goals differ from other online marketing tools such as SEO and search engine advertising with Google AdWords.
When evaluating the achievement of social media marketing goals, you should therefore focus on other KPIs or key figures than, for example, AdWords or SEO campaigns. Challenging goals like sales or leads shouldn’t be overstated. On the other hand, primary goals could be traffic increases, the proportion of returning visitors’ likes on Facebook, or the number of social media contacts.
Social Media Marketing: What should you pay attention to?
The social web is primarily a network of private individuals who provide user-generated content. So it’s understandable that companies with commercial interests are initially treated as foreign bodies in this environment. Before you start communicating in Web 2.0 as a company, you should first act as an observer and monitor the social web, for example, the Twittersphere on Twitter, according to your Search company names. Is something written about my company or me? Is it positive, is it harmful? Who wrote it? You can also do the same via Google Alerts by constantly sending me an email concerning Google whenever the company name appears on the internet.
In addition, one should deal with the communication methods and ways of dealing with the social web.
It’s useless and is usually rather harmful if you lead it through the typical classic advertising monologue. So you will be punished for non-compliance.
You have to establish a dialogue equal with the users—more consultants than the seller. So you can use the social web as a customer loyalty channel.
It would help if you were enticed with exclusive offers only for the respective community for hard-selling. Word gets around, and the community should grow as a result.
To expand your community, you can also lure with regular valuable content or, for example, useful apps for free. This guarantees that the community stays on the ball and grows.
RSS feeds and buttons for the standard social bookmark services and recommendations on Facebook & Co. should be normal.
What is Ignite Social Media?
Ignite Social Media has proven its expertise for more than a decade since it was founded in 2007. They bill themselves as “the original social media agency.” They were named Social Media Agency of the Year worldwide at the 2016 Corporate Social Media Awards.
They’ve helped the world’s most valuable brands set their social media strategy, execute it daily, and measure the results. They focus on getting measurable results on social media. The agency operates globally from its offices in North Carolina and Michigan. It is certified as a Women’s Business Enterprise by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), the largest independent certifier of women-run businesses.
Ignite Social Media is on a mission to transform the world of marketing through social media. Services include:
- strategy development
- advisory
- community management
- Paid social advertising
- Social Content Creation
- Promotions
- influencer engagement
- Measurement & Monitoring
- Social Listening
- crisis management