The Emergence of Digital Marketing

In the digital age, consumers are now rely more on recommendation, online reviews and comparison tools as compared to traditional advertising methods, which is expensive, especially when it comes to Television, print publication and high traffic blog.

Brand Advocate is any person or consumer who talks favorably about a brand or product, and then passing along word-of-mouth messages and comments about the brand to other people, whether through online (social media) or offline (in real life). A brand advocate may be a well-respected or active person in a particular industry, journalists or online influencers with millions of followers in social media. In fact, it was proven that brand advocates are effective’s way to expose company’s brand, reliable sources, create a strong relationship with customers and eventually influences the buying-process. However, there are many ways to engage with advocates such as contests, offers discounts and personal email, sponsorships and partnership as well as competitions.

A classic example of which is Red Bull, its sponsorship of extreme sports has create a huge global fan base of advocates who sees the brand as synonymous with a particular way of life. Another example would be IKEA, by sharing their enthusiasm for its brand through creating a contest “#JoyOfStorage” campaign, which asked Facebook’s fans to post picture of IKEA’s products in their home to win prizes. These photos served as a mini advertisement campaign for IKEA’s products and helped to inspire other fans. These examples show how consumer advocacy create some of the best values through WOM marketing could exponentially increase the company’s profile and positive associations.

The power of social media has creating a paradigm shift in business methods, whereby the traditional marketing practices are no longer effective due to limited exposure of brand.

Social media listening (SML) is software that enables a company to listen, share, learn about what being said about the company, brands or product, and engages with customers across the social platforms to provide feedbacks such as Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and so forth. In fact, it allows the company specifically target intended audiences by listening, which in turn, it provides an opportunity to reply to their comments and criticism and make necessary change on their strategies. Moreover, real time analyses of a brand are feasible and realizable by time, source, demographic & other background variables. However, SML is proven a successful strategic due to the abilities to identify influencer and advocates, get consumer feedbacks, competitive analysis and have a better customer care. As a new user is increasingly every year, SML is important tool particularly for big company or MNC that required monitoring to avoid missing out of opportunities to delight customer or collect valuable feedback. Therefore, SML is indeed will benefit the company and the business as a whole.

Ethic is human guideline of considering what is wrong and right. However, the usages of SML have evolved the ethicality and privacy concerns. In my opinion, SML is ethical as long the data are stored under the protection of law and stored safely by the organization. In fact, sites such as Radiant 6 are being used with the intention to track all the news about an organization that pops up on social sites. For example, Curtin University has been utilizing these tools to help further instant response from their public. To emphasize, the posts are made publicly by the consumer itself. Hence, to combat the potential of misused of the data available in social platforms, the company have to underpin by ethical approaches meeting the new demands of the market.

In today’s business world, companies are spending a huge amount of expenses on traditional & digital advertising such as banners, television ads, radio, magazines, newspapers and so forth. However, in order to succeed in the competitive digital media landscape, marketers must know the salient of owned media that contribute to a comprehensive marketing strategy.

Owned media comprises of digital marketing channels which refers to a brand that are fully or partially control by the organization, whether that’s digital or non-digital of channels, as opposed to paid media. The most common examples of owned media are blog, social media accounts, newsletters or official websites that are controlled by the company. In facts, there are tremendous amount of digital owned assets such as online events, social networks, sales promotion, email, websites, QR Codes and mobile tags and contests, all these examples allows a brand to build a long-term relationship with existing potential customers. For instances, company like Celcom Axiana utilized sales promotion as a way to promote their products through different type of channels, particularly in their official websites which consistent with all their social media. The engagements of which has reach millions of consumers and customers.

Therefore, in order to a brand’s marketing efforts to be completely effective, owned media are the most valuables type of media (apart from earned and paid media) which allow companies to market directly to intended audience without any cost and thus, marketers must to understand how the content could influence marketing strategic to reach and engage with customer more effectively. 

Engagement platforms are the platforms that have empowered consumers to connect, share, and collaborate, creating spheres of influences that have fundamentally altered the way marketers engage in influencing activities, specifically through earned media such as social networking sites, blogs and moblogs, internet discussion boards and forums. As consumer empowerment interpret that companies do not have the control over content or dissemination, whereas social media is perceived as a more trustworthy sources of information then corporate communication. In the case of Puma Index, the downturn in the economy had put the model clothes came off, right down to their PUMA underwear. This strategic was to create awareness of the PUMA’s new bodywear collection in autumn 2009 where they use a real time stock ticker, with a small twist. In short, the website has become a word-of-mouth and became one of the most talked about sites in national media and went viral on social media. Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” campaign is a great example of viral marketing success by spreading its message worldwide via YouTube video with 25 languages, reaching more than 110 countries. The promotional video generated record-breaking online interest, with more than 114 million viewers for the first month after it’s launched. In sum, the company has sold an enormous amount of product, with total sales of $4 billion. Another example is Beat by Dre, “Straight Outta Compton Meme” campaign is a success viral marketing that inspired people to fill in the blank with their hometown in the signature design, then post their photo to FB or twitter. The whole purpose was to promote and create a global conversation that would generate interest of the movie “Straight Outta Compton” before its release in August 2015. In the first week of its launched, the site has had more than 6 million visitors created memes, and 11 million of visitors, 8 million download of meme and 700k of shares. In short, the companies has earned $200 million at the worldwide box office and remained no1 in movie theaters for 3 weeks straight.  What makes all these campaigns was so great is the facts that is appeal to the emotions of their intended audiences. 

Hence, it is important for marketers to utilized different types of media especially earned media to engage effectively, especially video and info-graphics. Internet as the power to influence other consumers through eWOM, especially when the message is emotionally attached which in turn, it encourages re-purchase and support from customer and it is often correlated with revenue and profits.

In today’s world, human are now live in the Age of Science. Information and communication technology has become a necessity and part of human life. With the latest technology of social media, the development of human communication particularly in social platform has stresses the role of social media users.

Forrester Group researchers identified some unique traits and various characteristics of different segment about on how social platforms are being used by users through creating, viewing and interacting with the online content. (make ur own transition word) the creators are wired and tech-savvy people who publish a blog or articles online, maintain webpage or upload video or music and post them for sharing. Conventionalists are who update their status on social media site and post updates on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Critics post rating and review of goods & services, comment on blog and contribute to online forum. Usually they will used Google Review, Yelp, Trip Advisor or Foursquare. Collector is individual who read a lot of information and may vote for website online or add tag pages or photos and use RSS feeds. They use FB or Flickr to tag friends and services like Flipbook or Google reader to consume site updates through RSS. Joiner, are people who have profile on different social media platforms and visit them with more regularity for maintenances. Spectators are people who read online information & online forums, customer review and rating, listen to podcast and watch video but do not participate. Inactive are people who aren’t engage in any of the social technologies. 

Personally, I believed spectators are the only group that can be characterized in my personal life due to my interest on reading different articles and journals, especially online news articles such as Bloomberg, CNN Student News and Reuters. On top of that, I will more likely to used online forum, review and rating to guide my decision-making process.