SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Social Media Marketing and SMEs: The UK Customers' Perspective

Literature Review

1.1 Introduction

With every online marketing channel and discipline, there must be tools to make the task of marketing more efficient and effective. (Asur, 2010, pp. 45) Social Media Marketing is no different. According to Churchill (2005) “over the past 6-9 months, I've been researching and reviewing a variety of social media management tools that help with everything from source network connections to campaign & social content management to monitoring & measurement. While there numerous tools that manage single platforms (like twitter) this list includes services that manage multiple social network accounts, content and measurement”. (pp. 19-25)

Lillington, (2011) suggests that the truth is social media is a low cost, high return, effective marketing method for promoting a service, product and brand over the web. It is a powerful method of marketing that can generate more links to your website, more attention and more traffic.

1.2 Brand Recognition

Social media and blogs can enhance a company image. They allow businesses to share information about their products and services in a controlled and targeted manner. (Cummings, 2008, pp. 120-133) Word of mouth marketing is a valued marketing method and social media enables a company to spread the word about its services and products to a wide range of users. According to Nettleton, (2010) niche Marketing: with careful research businesses can find almost any niche group of users to target their campaign or services to. Excellent content and the willingness to share expertise can quickly generate supporters and valuable visitors to your website.

1.3 Improved SEO

Previous research done by De Bruyn, 2008; Smith, 2007 & Fisher, 2009 suggest that social media has the ability to complement and improve SEO. Key phrases in blog content, in descriptions or title tags, internal hyperlinks, links from other websites to your company blog, are all natural and powerful methods of improving ranking and visitor traffic. Utilising bookmarking sites such as Delicious and Digg for newly published content, generates a link to that content and therefore the potential for a tremendous boost in traffic. (Dellarocas, 2003, pp.1407-1424)

1.4 Monitor & Respond to Customer Feedback

It monitors brand mentions and respond accordingly with social media monitoring tools such as Google Alerts. Positive feedback is great but a business can also respond to negative comments quickly and efficiently. (Brown, 2007, pp. 2-20) Social media tools also come with a myriad of statistical tools which allow a business to monitor effective content, the most successful social media channels for referrals and those all important keywords and key phrases.

1.5 Social media is a marketing tool

Rettberg, (2008) found that in order to expand and promote a service or product, a business needs a core group of targeted users or 'supporters' who will then spread the word. Social media marketing will help drive traffic to your website, encouraging users to look at what your business is offering. It should be an integral part of a marketing plan. From sole traders to large corporations, if a business offers its product ...