1. Describe the six steps of social media promotion.

(1) Select target market/understand social media behaviour

-Listening to customers- using collectively or individual listening to identify and gain a good
understanding of an organization’s target markets and their social media use and behaviour.

Eg: 85% Contact lens wearers are using instant messaging between them and their friends.

(2) Set measurable communication goals

-Developing Market Communication- create a campaign.

Eg: In order to increase sales and brand image, Johnson & Johnson created Saving Momo, which
is the advergaming to promote their product.

(3）Define/ review performance metrics

- Review brand engagement and reputation.

(4) Select social media platform/tools

Eg: Johnson & Johnson using social media platform tools to gain the target customer. And
allows customers to download and play the Saving Momo game.

(5）Execute and monitor

- Johnson & Johnson Create game and theme pack

- cooperate with The Weather Channel to promote free apps

- Monitor customer engagement and feedback.

(6）Refine

-Move backward to improve any particular steps.

2. What are the main communication objectives companies seek to achieve with customers
and prospects?

1. Current customers
· Build brand loyalty
· Entice customer advocacy about the brand in social media
· Retain the customer’s business and build the purchase frequency and quantity
over time for all the company brands

2. Prospects
· Increase brand awareness
· Build interest and desire for the product and move initial purchase to other
actions

3. Both customers and prospects

· Engage customers through social media content by consuming information
· Commenting or reviewing products
. Creating content such as videos to upload and collaborating by posting
innovative
3. List and define the five traditional promotional tools.
● Advertising: paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of goods and
services by a sponsor. Examples: billboard advertisements, TV commercials, magazine
adverts.
● Public relations: Build good relations with the company’s various public, build up a
good/positive corporate image. Example: press release, product placement.
● Sales promotion: Short term incentive to encourage the sale of products and services.
Example: Christmas sale, CNY sale.
● Direct marketing: Relies on individual distribution of sales pitch to customers. Often
via e-mail and texting. Example: email marketing.
● Personal selling: Uses salesperson to sell the product by meeting face-to-face. The
salesperson should get the prospects to either buy, or atleast try the product. Example:
Amway (most insurance companies use this), booths in shopping malls/supermarkets.
.
4. What is the most important criterion used by companies to select appropriate social media
platforms for communication?
The target audience is the most important criterion when choosing an appropriate social media
platform. Companies are able to use various methods to help them such as :
The first method used by companies is to follow the traditional media model, check
with each social media platform to get statistics on users preferences to see if there is an overlap
with the target markets. If there are significantly larger numbers of prospects in certain social
media platforms, it shows that it is a suitable medium to communicate with the target market. For
example, using Facebook Insight allows companies to target specific Facebook users who are
more likely to be attracted by the offerings.
The second method is to survey the company’s customers to see which social media
platform they use, and assume that prospective customers with similar characteristics are using
the same medium as well.
The last method is to participate in social media that seems appropriate and to see if
customers and prospects engage with the content on the platform. This experimental approach
is discouraged however, as the trial-and-error process is time-consuming and does not achieve
the social commerce objectives.

5. Define owned, paid, and earned social media.

➢ Owned media carry communication messages from the organization to Internet users on
channels that are owned. Thus, at least partially controlled by the company. This could be
a company blog, YouTube channel, website, or Facebook page.

➢ Paid media is when the brand pays to leverage social media properties, such as
sponsorships, advertising, cost per action (CPA) and cost per engagement (CPE). These
are properties owned by others who are paid by the organization to carry its promotional
messages. The company controls the content, however, the media have content and
technical requirements to which the advertisers must adhere.

➢ Earned media is when customers and the public share a company content, speak about
the brand via word of mouth, and otherwise discuss the brand. Companies have the least
amount of control over this media channel, however, they respond to customer
conversation and try to guide it toward their positive brand messages. In other words, the
mentions are “earned,” meaning they are voluntarily given by others.

6. Define all the types of owned social media.

Websites dedicated to gathering customer opinions.
● Some sites exist for consumers to provide new product ideas.
● For example, my starbucks idea that encourages people to post and comment on new
products, experiences, or community involvement suggestions.

Online public and private communities.

● Companies create spaces for consumers, prospects and business customers to discuss
topics of interest or seek company support with technical or product issues.
● These include social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest.
● Organizations create profiles and pages in these networks and post content to start
conversations.

Blogs and microblogs.

● Individuals in sponsoring organizations create blogs to express opinions, discuss product
uses, and share information in sites such as Blogger, Tumblr.
● Twitter started as a microblogging site that turned into a social network, so it spans both
categories.
● Blogs can be added to a company’s Facebook page as well as to the company’s own
website.

Multimedia sharing sites.

● These include photographic image sharing such as Flickr, Pinterest, Instagram, video
sharing such as YouTube and podcast sharing iTunes and SoundCloud.
● Sellers can bring their products to life and improve their visitors’ experiences by adding
video or audio content to their product pages on social networks.

Virtual worlds.
● Second Life. Companies can create a virtual webstore, multimedia event, contest and can
also create blogs.
● They can publish a URL containing streaming audio or video content, so that other
Seconds Life residents will view their content and subscribe. Companies can also
participate in Seconds Life media, such as providing content for the in-world radio and
television stations.

Company-hosted virtual events.

 ● Organizations host Webinars and online events that attract participants who can send
questions and chat with each other during the event.

Mashups.
● These include many types of website combinations to engage consumers.
● Google Places for Business, which allows business owners to list their business name and
location so that mobile and computer users can find the business location on a Google
Map.

7. What are the key advertising formats used in social media to aid commerce?

Advertising formats refer to anything that goes with paid media online such as text from a

sentence to pages of story. Or it can be graphics, sound, video, hyperlinks, or an animated car

driving through a page. Advertisers use social media to build brand awareness, engage existing

customers, increase size of community (friends, followers, fans) and drive traffic to an online

destination.

Display Advertising

- These use text and graphics, as well as the company’s logos and contact information/Web

links. Display ads are popular offline in billboards, the Yellow Pages, and movies.

- Internet display ads come in many different sizes, the most popular of which are banners,

buttons, rectangles, and skyscrapers (tall and narrow) ads.

- For example, many search advertising companies (e.g., Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft’s

Bing) gain revenue by selling their huge audience’s attention to advertisers via display

ads.

Classified ads
 - These usually use text, but may also include photos. The ads are grouped according to

classification (e.g., cars, rentals), and tend to be the least expensive format.

- In many cases, posting regular size classified ads is free, but making them larger, in

color, or with some other noticeable features is done for a fee.

- For example, it can be found in online newspapers and dedicated websites.

Choose-Your-Own-Advertising Format

- The AdSelector allows consumers to select what ads they like to view prior to streaming

content (they are presented with two or three options). This model has been in use mostly

for online videos with Hulu.

- For example, Hulu users have to watch 2 advertisements that they get to choose in order

to proceed with the features of the site.

Social Advertising

- A social ad is an online ad that incorporates user interactions that the consumer has

agreed to display and be shared.The resulting ad displays interactions along with the

user’s persona (picture and/or name) within the ad content.

- For example, this image is indicating she watched a cool new movie. The ad is then

presented to the Facebook friends that she selected to view it and thus, share her

excitement about this new movie.

Video Advertising

- Video advertising refers to the insertion of video ads into regular online content. Video

ads are common in Internet TV programs and YouTube videos.

- The major reason for the popularity of videos is that almost everyone who uses the

Internet now watches online videos. Videos are also viewed on all mobile devices (e.g.,

smartphones, tablets) and they can be posted on social networks.

Behaviorally Targeted Ads (aka Contextual Ads and Remarketing)

- Advertising networks track user click behavior, usually through cookie files placed on the

user hard drive and then present ads to the user based on their previous behavior.

- For example, when a person searches for a particular laptop brand in Lazada. He/she may

find themselves encountering ads regarding the laptop on social media sites.

Sponsored Content

- Sponsorships integrate editorial content and advertising based on either underwritten

(someone else's content) or advertiser-created content. These can include content features

or interactive functions associating the sponsor’s brand with the content.

- For example, it can be paid social media influencers such as celebrities promoting a

particular product and services with a positive review.

- For example, a food company might pay for space on a cooking blog or wiki to insert

recipes using its products as ingredients. This looks like content from the site, but is

actually paid space.

Product Placement

- Advertisers can deeply embed products or ads in TV shows or films.

 - Game publishers are now using the same tactic product placement in online multiplayer

games or videos. This is similar to movie product placement offline.

- For example, the online music video game Guitar Hero often has advertisements on the

stage behind the musicians. Game players enjoy this kind of advertising because it makes

the games seem more realistic.

Text Link Ads

- Link ads are ads that are simply a hyperlink placed in specific text in a blog post or other

social media content including content downloaded by mobile phone users.

- An example will be a coffee shop might buy a specified number of links for the word

“latte” on many blog sites, and these would have a hyperlink to the coffee shop’s website.

The goal of these ads is to raise a site’s rankings in search engines.