Social media marketing

Businesses often launch products and hope for a high return without knowing what it takes to achieve that. It is essential that all marketing activity is measurable, so that companies are able to understand exactly which part of their marketing mix is successful in creating results.

Thanks to social media in particular, which is now widespread, brands have become dominated by communities, and as a result, there has been a significant increase in social media marketing. However, as Hoffman and Fodor state, such methods need a new form of measurement to understand its potential and its use.

Different processes are involved when engaging with a company's audience or other publics online, and consumers can now be seen as active contributors, as opposed to customers, that create a marketplace themselves.


One way to measure ROI with social media marketing is to turn the traditional notion of measuring investment against return, for example through the number of visits, on its head. Hoffman and Fodor suggest that rather than viewing social media marketing as another part of the traditional marketing process, businesses should instead consider developing more meaningful relationships with customers, considering the four key motivations of connections, creation, consumption and control - the 4Cs.


This demonstrates an understanding that the social media environment is consumer, not marketer controlled and allows for more value-based objectives such as brand awareness, brand engagement and word-of-mouth recommendation.


A social media marketing strategy that is carefully planned can deliver considerable data regarding customer online investment in a brand and reveal vital information to businesses, such as any effect on the value proposition, the 'purchase decision funnel', and crucially, in the long run, the bottom line.