Social Media Marketing

Individual Research Paper

        Companies will often seek for the most influential and effective way to leverage their campaigns and bring a positive perception to their brand; in an attempt to do this, many firms will do this is by finding the most effective element to their media mix. Over the last few years, more and more firms are turning to social media advertising to get the word of mouth they are looking for. As popularity on social media sites have grown exponentially over the last decade, more and more people are starting to utilize this virtual online community of networks. In February of 2005 only 8% of internet users used some sort of social media; in 2013, it was estimated that 73% of adults use some sort of social media whether it be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. As an abundance of networks continue to grow online connecting people from opposite ends of the planet, businesses began to catch onto this growing trend. Companies began to see the potential of tapping into ever growing markets and demographics that can connect with thousands of people with just a click of a button. [pic 1]

Social media has become a major staple in countless organization’s media mixes. Social media advertising can be defined as a methodical approach of a company to achieve some sort of organizational goal, such as promoting a product or creating a positive brand perception, through the use of the plentiful social media platforms. In today’s day and age, people have become so desensitized by most advertisements such as repetitive TV commercials, build boards, print advertisements, etc. Social media is changing the advertisement industry by creating creative and effective ways of promotion that reach a wide variety of audiences. Many companies are beginning to devote large portions of the advertisement budgets towards social media advertising. The use of social media to advertise campaigns, brands or products has become a very prominent marketing tactic that several companies are now utilizing with great success.

        Among the many companies that focus on having a strong social media presence is the ecommerce site Fab.com. Fab.com is well known in the online industry for selling state of the art tech gadgets, stunning home décor and men’s and women’s clothing; however, they are now changing the game through their use of social media outlets. In the recent past, Fab.com released their latest website design which they named Fab 3.0 with an incredible integration of social media to compliment and promote their sales. On their website, you can log into Fab.com through your Facebook which allows you to see what your friends are buying, sharing, liking and reposting. This is incredibly important because not only is Facebook the largest social media outlet online, but Fab.com is allowing users to shop through Fab.com’s various collections using their Facebook to share their purchases and opinions on what they buy which in return is creating a large word of mouth advertising. Due to this use of social media, Fab.com is reaping the benefits. Since the release of this new free storefront, over 4.25 million customers have logged in; however, the most impressive part about this, half of these new 4.25 million new users came from this use of social sharing and 15% of all visitors have resulted in a purchase. The website is also designed much like the social media outlet Pinterest. Upon logging in there are live feeds of items being sold, “favorited,” reposted and even recommendations that are customized for that specific user. On top of all of this, Fab.com has their own personal Twitter and Facebook accounts which customers can post questions or concerns to which they receive personalized responses. They utilize their social media accounts as a form of a CRM to gain leverage on their customers and improve in the future.  Fab.com and their use of social media advertising is innovation at it’s finest. They are effectively able to create word of mouth advertising for products by expanding their market to users of Facebook who are able to share their purchases with their thousands of online friends in their network. It also creates a very easy to use and understand interface for the user because it mimmicks their social media accounts which are used on a day to day basis. Lastly, Fab.com is able to optimize their responsiveness to customers by utilizing social media as a form of CRM; in class we discussed the vitally important roles of CRMs and how they allow for firms to gain leverage on what customers want in order to improve and increase efficiency. Fab.com is an extremely accurate depiction of how crucial an online presence is in order to succed in today’s marketplace.[pic 2]