Page 265 - Foundations of Marketing

232 Part 3 | Customer Behavior and E-Marketing

An important question relates to how social media sites are adding value to the economy.
Marketers at companies like Ford and Zappos, for instance, are using social media to pro-
mote products and build consumer relationships. Many corporations are supporting Face-
book pages and Yammer accounts for employees to communicate across departments and
divisions. Even staffi ng organizations use social media, bypassing the traditional e-mail and
telephone channels. While billions of dollars in investments are being funneled into social
media, it may be too early to assess the exact economic contribution of social media to the
6
entire economy.

Facebook

When Facebook surpassed Myspace in its number of members, it became the most popu-
7
lar social networking site in the world. Internet users create Facebook profiles and then
search the network for people with whom to connect. Facebook markets to parents and
grandparents as well as to teenagers. The social networking giant surpassed 1 billion users
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and is growing.
For this reason, many marketers are turning to Facebook to market products, interact
with consumers, and take advantage of free publicity. It is possible for consumers to become
“fans” of major companies like Avon by clicking on the “like” icon on their Facebook pages.
Facebook also offers businesses ways to engage in e-commerce. The organization launched a
“Gifts” feature that permits users to purchase gifts—such as a Starbucks gift card—and send
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these gifts to their friends through the site.
Additionally, social networking sites are useful for relationship marketing, or the
creation of relationships that mutually benefit the marketing business and the customer.
Companies are using relationship marketing through Facebook to help consumers feel
more connected to their products. For instance, New Belgium Brewing has more than 35
local Facebook pages and uses the website to target advertisements toward its fan base.
After conducting a study on its Facebook fans, the company determined that its fans
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generate half of the company’s annual sales. Thanks to Facebook, companies like New
Belgium are able to understand who their customers are and how the company can meet
their needs.

Twitter

Twitter is a hybrid mix of a social network-
Do you find your company’s Facebook ing site and a micro-blogging site that asks
presence valuable? viewers one simple question: “What’s hap-
pening?” Users can post answers of up to
140 characters, which are then available for
Snapshot 23% 42% Yes 140 characters may not seem like enough
5%
5%
their “followers” to read. A limitation of
for companies to send an effective message,
23%
42%
No
but some have become experts at using
Twitter in their marketing strategies. For
Don’t have a
presence
instance, Southwest Airlines has an entire
team monitor its Twitter account during its
No longer have a
business operations to answer questions
presence because
30%
30%
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ranging from refunds to lost baggage.
I saw no value
These efforts are having an impact; approx-
imately 88 percent of users report that they
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follow at least one brand on Twitter.
Like other social networking sites,
Source: Manta survey of 614 small-business owners. Twitter is also being used to enhance
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