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Marketing research on social media marketing. SMM marketing from A to Z. steps to launch a campaign on Facebook

We've released a new book, Social Media Content Marketing: How to Get Inside Your Followers' Heads and Make Them Fall in Love with Your Brand.

is a marketing tool for developing and increasing awareness and loyalty, as well as increasing audience involvement in discussions related to the company’s activities on social networks, forums and blogs.

Reaching more and more users. These platforms open up unlimited opportunities to communicate with potential clients. Therefore, enterprises, ranging from small businesses represented by one person to large corporations, open representative offices and set up SMM marketing on social networks.

Social marketing SMM is based on communication with the audience and allows you to more accurately analyze the mood of customers in the market, your competitors and quickly respond to existing situations.

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SMM methods

Creating a profile. Social media marketing begins with creating a page dedicated to and representing the company. You should remember that you must communicate with users and respond to their comments. Moreover, negative comments should not be deleted, but completely dealt with. To delve into the problem that the user is facing, to suggest ways to solve it that will suit him. And thus turn a negative into a positive review.

One successful example is the official GoPro Instagram account. The total number of his subscribers exceeds 13.5 million. And each publication receives at least 100,000 views.

The company page is so popular due to the content it publishes. It's so immersive that you don't notice how time flies while you scroll through videos and photos taken by GoPro. Moreover, most of the material was provided by camera users. And this is a great advertising move that allows the product to speak for itself.

Another interesting example is the collaboration between the Taco Bell and Snapchat brands, which resulted in the creation of an application.

It processes a user's photo in such a way that their head turns into a giant taco. In one day, the number of views was more than 224 million.

When starting SMM, it is important to understand that it does not give a quick effect. However, if you use it correctly, you will get long-lasting results.

Recently, the Internet has played an increasingly important role in our lives. Today, social networks are actively developing, which, naturally, has not gone unnoticed by advertising and marketing specialists: large brands are actively using this communication channel. The purpose of this article is to consider certain types of advertising on social networks and try to assess the prospects of their use as an advertising medium.

When assessing the prospects for using the Internet in general and social networks in particular, it is necessary, as in the case of other communication channels, to assess the degree of audience compliance. We will not dwell in detail on the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the audience of social networks; we will only note that the main users of these resources are people under the age of 34, among whom women slightly predominate, and the frequency of visiting these resources and the time of contact with them makes them extremely attractive to advertisers.

Among the companies that have included advertising on social networks in their communication policies are such major corporations as Apple, JPMorgan Chase (one of the oldest and most influential financial companies on the planet), Microsoft, Samsung, Yokohama, Kodak and others.

  • The ability to accurately target an advertising message according to socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender) and geographical location. However, it should be noted that email services also allow you to select the audience to whom the message will be sent or who will see the banner based on these characteristics. Moreover, mail systems allow you to take into account the latest queries in search engines when choosing the audience to whom a particular message is sent, and contextual advertising is built on the principle of matching the request. However, compared to such communication channels as television, radio, the press, the Internet in general and social networks in particular, they allow you to select an audience much more accurately.
  • Long time of contact with a social network.
  • Emotional involvement. The user perceives a page on a social network as his own space; he is aimed at communication, obtaining information and entertainment. In addition, the user himself forms his own community on a social network, both according to the principle of a “common past” and for various professional and other reasons, therefore information received in such an environment, all other things being equal, enjoys great confidence.
  • A wide range of different communication methods, including the possibility of hidden advertising and PR. In addition, an important feature of communication on a social network is the ability to prolong even short events and expand the functionality of communication.
  • Low representation of older age group audiences in networks. The main disadvantage of social networks, especially in Russia,
  • Due to the strong emotional involvement, aggressive communication may be perceived as an invasion of personal space, which will negatively affect the perception of the message.

The development of marketing communications within social networks is going in two directions:

  • adaptation of traditional methods of Internet advertising to this Internet medium;
  • the emergence of new methods that take into account the peculiarities of the functioning of social networks.

Adapted methods include media advertising (banner and video advertising), direct mail, and contextual advertising. In this article we will not consider them in detail, since these methods are already traditional and the social network, in this case, is simply a subtype of advertising medium on the Internet. Much more interesting from the point of view of marketing and the opportunities that these tools provide are specialized tools that exist only within social networks - these are methods such as the formation of communities or groups and the development of games and applications. Forums and blogs are also to some extent analogous to groups on social networks, but since the capabilities of groups are somewhat different, we believe that it makes sense to consider them separately.

In this article, we will first give a number of examples of the use of groups and games within social networks, and then analyze the prerequisites for the use of these methods and methods that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising using groups and games.

Creating groups. In social networks it is possible to create groups (clubs, communities). These can be groups of a specific product or brand: for example, Yokohama Canada has created its own accounts on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Every day Yokohama receives a huge number of reviews about its products. From Russian practice, we can give an example of a low-budget advertising campaign for Physiomer nasal drops. With the help of three competitions, the company managed to form a group that included the target audience of the product: 9 thousand women aged 25 to 40 years. Even with such a specific audience and topic, the group was very active in competitions and discussions. Within the group, a direct consultation line was established with an ENT doctor who answered questions from group visitors.

Brands such as Venus, MS Office 2010, Braun (epilators), Nice and many others have their own groups.

An important feature of groups is that this is, in fact, a communication channel that is an alternative to the company’s and/or brand’s own website and allows long-term interaction with the consumer. Moreover, unlike a website, a group on a social network involves more informal communication - a group member is “on his own territory.” The manufacturer has the opportunity not only to communicate directly with the buyer, inform about promotions, new products, receive feedback on products, which, of course, has a positive impact on the formation of loyalty, but also such a group is a tool for studying customer satisfaction, and the information received can serve as the basis for further developments. Moreover, it is possible to use this communication channel as a sales promotion tool. In addition to creating his own group, the advertiser has the opportunity to disseminate information within an existing group or join his group as “friends” to a group with a similar topic. For example, there are several fairly large groups dedicated to alpine skiing and snowboarding, which manufacturers of ski equipment and ski resorts can join. Another example of such integration is the Forex Club group (a broker for private investors), which advertises on its page Business FM radio, a radio that broadcasts business news.

It is important to note that this type of advertising is ideal for companies with limited geography. For example, private kindergartens, beauty salons, car washes are all companies where the accessibility factor is of great importance when choosing services. To summarize, we can say that creating groups is an interesting tool for building loyalty, a way to obtain feedback from customers and even market research.

An important feature of the group is interactivity. For example, as part of an advertising campaign for Blendtec blenders, videos advertising products of this brand appeared on the social network and after a while users themselves began to suggest products that they would be interested in grinding to check the quality of the blenders - the iPhone became the leader in the list of products for grinding. From a marketing point of view, the interesting thing is that, in fact, potential consumers themselves created the advertising that interests them.

Games and applications. In this case, there are two fundamentally different options for working. The first option is integration into existing popular applications. For example, Lay's chips were integrated into the game "Happy Farmer", the most common application of the social network VKontakte. As a result of this integration, the player has the opportunity to buy a Lay's plant, produce and sell several varieties of chips.

In September 2009, UralSib Bank provided virtual financial services to participants of the Happy Farmer application. Game participants now have the opportunity to take out a loan in virtual currency to develop their farm or open a virtual deposit in UralSib Bank by placing temporarily available funds. Thus, the real bank became part of the gameplay on the social network. In the first two days of the virtual bank’s operation, two million participants already used its services, but the main result of the advertising campaign is that more than 20 thousand unique visitors visited the official website of UralSib Bank in two days.

Another example of a flash mob campaign based on applications on a social network. Based on the Ovi Music online store, the “Comes with Music” service was launched, giving owners of Nokia X6 and Nokia 5230 phones the right to a free subscription to the entire Ovi Music collection. To attract attention to this campaign, in November 2009, Nokia held a “viral campaign “Queue” on the VKontakte social network. Nokia sent messages to the selected target audience inviting them to participate in the promotion; people of two age categories were selected as the audience: 18-25 and 25-35.

Users chose one of the proposed avatars, with the opportunity to insert their photo in place of the multi-person’s head, receiving 500 points for this, and stood in a virtual queue, not knowing what they were standing for in it. Participants could view who was in line behind them and ask the person in front what the queue was for. You could write message texts above the characters’ heads, receiving 5 points for each new one. Each participant in the queue had his own number and a unique Nokia code. For each friend invited to the queue, the user received 100 points. The intrigue grew, users spread the virus, inviting their friends to the application, until the number of participants reached 250,000. The winners of the promotion received new Nokia products, and all participants in the queue received the opportunity to download music for free from OviMusic.

In December 2009, an original promotion of TM Twix took place on the VKontakte website in the “Cocktail for a Friend” application. Millions of social network users exchanged drinks with each other, delighting their friends and passing on some of their emotions to them through a gift. Interestingly, this promotion is reminiscent of the offline promotion of Kozel beer, in which buyers of this brand of beer had the opportunity not to receive a gift, but to send it to a friend. Rather than simply viewing an ad, participants engaged in gameplay and shared the Twix coffee collection among their friends. The average daily audience of Twix drinks “Cappuccino”, “Cream and Coffee” and “Mocha Chocolate” exceeded two million people. In the first two days of the promotion alone, users sent each other more than 20 million cocktails.

It is important to note the following important features of the games.

  • The player plays this game with friends. This has a positive impact on the quality of information perceived by users; we can say that it is not perceived as SPAM, and secondly, it prevents people from abandoning the game, since the reference group is involved in the process.
  • Interaction with the brand occurs in a playful way.
  • In some cases, the player is forced to regularly log into the game (at a strictly specified time interval) to collect resources (points), otherwise he will suffer a loss. Moreover, modern social games can remind the user to continue playing

That is, this model is viral in nature and is a mechanism for the formation of a social group. In other words, the game is an identifying parameter that defines the reference group. To assess the scale of engagement in games on social networks, you can use the following figures: Restaurant City (the application ranks eighth in the top ten most popular games on Facebook) has more than 5 million players daily and their number continues to grow. The game Farmville is played by 60 million people every month (for comparison, World of Warcraft plays 11.5 million).

Naturally, integration of various forms of advertising on social networks is possible. For example, an application was developed - a game for Tess tea. The game was advertised using banners that were shown to the potential target audience. In addition, a group was created in which game participants could communicate.

Interestingly, applications can be expanded and monetized, for example, the introduction of new characters and new services can be carried out on a paid basis.

Often, agencies specializing in social media marketing (Social Media Marketing) offer the advertiser the creation of a group or application as an alternative, assuming that these types of communications are extremely similar. But that's not true. Moreover, in our opinion, these methods are united only by a common operating environment - a social network. Otherwise, these instruments have fundamental differences. One of them is the characteristics of the advertised object.

Groups are an interesting communication tool for products or brands, the demand for which is characterized by a long decision-making process, in which rational arguments are of greatest importance, as well as a high degree of involvement in the selection process.

But it’s hard to imagine a group whose members discuss milk or chips. For products with more emotional decision-making, where spontaneous brand awareness and the presence of the product in the mind of the consumer play a significant role, games are a much more effective method.

Moving beyond specific types of products or services, the choice between a game and an app should be based on a decision about where in the decision-making process the advertiser wants to influence the consumer. Using the example of UralSib Bank, it is clear that a game is a way to introduce a product into the so-called list of alternatives under consideration, which is one of the most important steps in decision making. That is, the advertiser, realizing that the final decision on financial services depends on a huge number of factors, most of which are rational, focused his advertising efforts not on showing his advantages, but on ensuring that during the analysis process the bank was considered a potential consumer.

As with any communication channel, the question of assessing the effectiveness of advertising arises.

The traditional approach to performance evaluation involves comparing goals and objectives with achieved results. Depending on the goals and objectives of the advertising campaign, various indicators can serve as criteria for its effectiveness. The entire set of goals of an advertising campaign, regardless of the medium used, can be divided into two large groups: commercial and communication.

In accordance with these two groups of advertising campaign goals, communication and economic efficiency are distinguished. When assessing communication effectiveness, the level and nature of the impact of advertising on the consumer is determined. It is important to note that the criteria for assessing communication effectiveness can be both qualitative, what image of the product or company has formed in the consumer, how accurately the advertising message is conveyed, and quantitative: what is the level of brand awareness before and after the advertising campaign, the number of consumers who saw and remembered the advertisement. Examples of communication goals include the following:

  • increasing brand/product/company recognition;
  • building brand loyalty;
  • growing brand awareness
  • creating a need for a product;
  • formation of a certain level of knowledge about a product or company among consumers;
  • building consumer trust in a product or company, building loyalty;
  • and others.

But if when using other methods of online advertising, the site traffic criterion is often used as an indicator of communication effectiveness, then when using groups and games, this parameter is applicable only if visiting the site is a target action, that is, the action that the advertiser is trying to achieve . Moreover, when using groups, you need to understand that it is also possible to drag consumers from the company’s website into the group. Therefore, when using this parameter, it is necessary to clearly distinguish in which cases it is necessary to evaluate the transition to the site, when the transition is unlikely, and in what cases it makes sense to consider the total traffic of the group and the site. For example, in the Lay's chips advertising campaign discussed earlier, the player's transition to the site was not a target action, but for the UralSib company this parameter was an important criterion for effectiveness. If we consider the use of groups, then when assessing the effectiveness of advertising for nasal drops, it makes sense to use nasal drops as The criterion is not the number of site visits, but either the total number of site visitors and group members, or, in general, focus only on group traffic.

In the case of assessing the economic efficiency of an advertising campaign, the goals may be:

  • actual increase in sales volume (in general for a particular group) in physical terms;
  • maintaining trade turnover, promoting sales, increasing market share, obtaining a certain profit;
  • dynamics of sales volume relative to the base period;
  • increase in the number of new clients;
  • increasing market share;
  • and others.

It is obvious that economic efficiency usually depends on communication efficiency; in other words, the level of sales depends on the degree of psychological impact of advertising on the consumer.

In our opinion, both games and groups are, first of all, a branding tool, and, therefore, assessing economic efficiency in the short term is possible with a certain degree of conditionality. If a group or game has only communication goals, then the economic effect may not occur immediately and may be extended over time. This lag between contact with advertising and reaction to it depends both on advertising, including all its components, and on the product itself and the characteristics of demand for it: the degree of involvement in the decision-making process, the degree of impulsiveness of demand, the number of alternatives considered, as well as external factors - seasonality, price, distribution and many others.

Moreover, for groups and games, it can often be difficult to determine when an advertising campaign will end. For example, a group on a social network, as mentioned earlier, can work for a long time after the end of an advertising campaign on the Internet, and a game can be popular for a long time without any effort on the part of the advertiser.

When using groups, a situation may arise where the user is interested in the game, but not in the product. This does not mean that advertising is ineffective. From the point of view of building a brand, this contact is also important, since the user becomes the bearer of the necessary information about the product.

For a comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of an advertising campaign on the Internet, the AIDA (attention-interest-desire-action) model is used as a basis, the stages of which are associated with certain coefficients. Let's consider the possibility of using this model and coefficients in relation to groups and games on social networks.

The “attention” stage in relation to groups and games on social networks can be compared to the stage of organizing a group or launching the game application itself. At this stage, it is important to use performance indicators that characterize the number of users attracted to the group/game:

  • Number of visitors/participants over a certain period of time.
  • Influx of new visitors/participants.
  • The cost of an advertising campaign per visitor/participant (cost per participant, CPP) is essentially an analogue of the traditional CPM indicator (cost of 1,000 impressions), which can be calculated as follows: CPP = C/P, where C is the cost advertising placement; P - number of visitors/participants.
  • The cost of one “friend” or the share of “friends” in the total number of visitors is a parameter that can only be used for groups. For calculations in formula (1), the number of “friends” is used as the denominator.

When calculating the indicators of this stage in relation to games, it is necessary to take into account at what point the user comes into contact with advertising information and, if necessary, make certain adjustments to the calculations of the number of contacts, that is, to determining the size of the audience.

Naturally, if the goal of an advertising campaign is to attract a specific audience, then indicators that characterize not the influx of visitors as a whole, but the influx of this particular target group, can be used as performance indicators.

The cost of an advertising campaign in the case of games and groups refers to the costs associated with the development of the application itself - the game, the costs of supporting the group and the costs of promoting the group or application, if any.

To evaluate performance parameters at the interest stage, we propose to use the following indicators that characterize the user’s interest in the game or group:

  • Group activity:
    • influx of visitors;
    • number of messages per unit of time (activity of existing participants);
    • share of regular visitors in the total number of visitors;
    • the ratio of the number of “writers” and “readers” in the group;
    • time of activity (existence) of the group;
  • Game activity:
    • frequency of appearance of new game participants;
    • frequency of entry into the game (application) by existing participants;
    • share of regular players from the total number of registrations;
    • game activity time;
    • the stage to which the average user reaches;
    • average time a user spends in a group.

From financial indicators you can use:

  • cost of a permanent participant/player. In this case, it is extremely important to develop a criterion of permanence in order to understand who is a permanent participant;
  • the average time a user spends in a group/game.

But, as mentioned earlier, in the case of games and applications, the parameters characterizing site visits are rather additional and, before using them to evaluate effectiveness, the advertiser must clearly understand the applicability of these criteria and their compliance with the goals and mechanisms of the advertising campaign.

Let's briefly list the main indicators that can be used to evaluate effectiveness at the site visit level. The first type of indicators allows you to evaluate the quantitative parameters of site visits:

  • the number of unique visitors to the site, their share in the total number of visits and their dynamics;
  • share of repeat visits to the site. When estimating the number of repeat visits, a significant problem is the choice of the time interval within which measurements are taken, since the user can visit the site after the end of the advertising campaign. This time interval is also a parameter that can be used when predicting the behavior of site visitors for subsequent optimization of the duration of the advertising campaign, the advertising platforms used and their comparative analysis and evaluation of the site itself;
  • visit frequency - the average number of times users visit the advertiser’s website over a certain period of time. This parameter can be calculated as the ratio of the number of visits to the number of unique users: FA=V/UV, where V is the total number of visits, and UV is the number of unique users;
  • number of new visitors. The main task when calculating the number of new visitors is to choose a method for determining the audience that visited the site before the advertising campaign. The total number of users can be taken as the number of all users who visited the site from a certain point in time until the start of the advertising campaign. The second option is to understand the number of regular users by the number of users. In the case of groups, as we have already said, the site and the group can compete with each other. Therefore, in some cases it will be wiser to take into account visitors of both. In addition, for sites of various topics, the concept of “regular user” can vary significantly: for example, for an online store specializing in the sale of books, music discs and video products, regular users can be considered those users who visit the online store’s website once every two months and more often and make a purchase at least once a quarter. But for an airline website, such a classification is unacceptable - for it, regular visitors will be those who visit the site once a quarter or more often, and make a purchase at least once every 6 months. For games, when used to promote goods of impulsive demand, visiting, and especially re-visiting the site, unless this is stimulated in a special way (for example, using the same game), may be unrealistic at all. Remember how often you visit the website of your favorite muesli?

Qualitative indicators characterize how the user interacts with the advertiser’s website. In this case, it is advisable to use the following indicators:

  • Geographical distribution of users.
  • Number of page views.
  • View depth.
  • Paths around the site.
  • Visiting time.

To assess economic efficiency at this level, it makes sense to use the following indicators:

  • CPUU (cost per unique user) the cost of one unique visitor (user) can be calculated as follows: CPUU=C/UU, where C is the cost of advertising, UU is the number of unique users.
  • CPV (cost per visit) - the cost of one visit: CPV=C/V, where C is the cost of advertising; V - number of visits.

Traditionally, evaluation at the “action” stage concerns those actions that the user can perform on the site - registration, subscription to news, placing an order, etc. But in the case of groups or games, these indicators must be modified. When using groups, action often occurs at the stage of interest - this is registration in the game. These indicators have been discussed previously.

For a group, action is also not always expected - only if within the group methods of stimulating action are used, for example, sales promotion, motivating a group member to register on the site, etc. However, when using tools to motivate users to visit your site, you can use the following online metrics:

  • number of actions;
  • if the action refers to the execution of an order: number of orders, sales volume, average purchase amount, costs per sale, costs per customer, advertiser costs per action;
  • frequency of action.

Among the offline indicators, the following are of interest:

  • number of calls to the company;
  • volume and dynamics of sales;
  • relative indicators: sales growth, the share of advertising campaign costs in revenue and profit, payback period for advertising campaign costs - that is, all those indicators that are used to evaluate the effectiveness of an advertising campaign when using traditional media.

Let us summarize the information presented above. The table shows the general system of advertising effectiveness on the Internet.

Thus, we examined examples of the use of two of the most interesting advertising tools on social networks due to their novelty. Naturally, various combinations of methods are possible, and, therefore, for each specific case it is necessary to develop your own system of performance indicators. We have considered a basic model, the components of which can be used to evaluate a particular case. We emphasize that, in our opinion, both games and groups on social networks are primarily a branding tool. The main argument in favor of using social networks should be the desire to simplify for potential consumers the process of obtaining information about the company, products and the need to create a “focus group”.

Social networks are, in our opinion, a powerful communication tool with wide functionality for building and developing communication between companies and consumers, both real and potential. The main disadvantage of this communication channel today is the poor representation of the age group over 35 years old, but the situation may gradually change as the current generation grows older.

Damir Khalilov is a well-known marketing specialist, owner and director of the GreenPR agency. In the book "Social Media Marketing“he talks about in which areas SMM is effective and in which it is not; debunks myths about social media marketing; advises in which cases it is worth hiring an SMM specialist, in which cases you should entrust the work to an SMM agency, and in which cases you should conduct an SMM campaign yourself. With company permission SmartReading We are publishing a summary of this edition prepared by her.

SmartReading is a new project by the co-founder of one of the leading Russian publishing houses of business literature, Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, Mikhail Ivanov and his partners. SmartReadingpublishes so-called summaries - texts that present in a concise form the key ideas of best-selling books in the non-fiction genre. Thus, people who for some reason cannot quickly read the full versions of books can get acquainted with their main ideas and theses.SmartReading uses a subscription business model in its work.


- Targeting - on social networks you have the opportunity to precisely focus your campaign, since when registering, users provide as much information as possible about themselves: age, place of residence, marital status, education, place of work, hobbies.

- Non-advertising format. Modern man is so overloaded with advertising that his brain develops special anti-advertising filters. In online media advertising there is a term “banner blindness”: a person visits a website, and his consciousness blocks the perception of areas of the page where banners are placed. SMM does not use an advertising format, and the content is distributed during communication on topics that are relevant to the user, and therefore does not cause irritation or rejection.

- Interactive interaction. Working with the audience using other marketing tools is built in a one-way format: the advertiser conveys information about his product without being able to receive feedback. In social networks, this process is two-way and allows for deeper interaction with the target audience.

1.2. Myths about SMM

SMM, as a relatively young phenomenon, is surrounded by myths:

    People don't buy anything on social networks. Despite the fact that shopping is not the goal of social network visitors, they willingly join communities that offer interesting information. Properly planned and implemented interaction in a group leads its participants to make a purchasing decision.

    Only teenagers use social networks. No, the audience of social networks is heterogeneous in terms of age, income level, profession, education and place of residence; All major demographic groups are represented there to one degree or another.

    SMM is very expensive. SMM can even be budget-free. In Russia, a popular model is in which a campaign first uses low-budget or free tools (for example, website integration with social networks), and after they begin to have an effect, more expensive tools are connected (for example, targeted advertising).

    The effectiveness of an SMM campaign cannot be calculated. This is not true: methods for assessing campaign results have already been developed and are being successfully applied.

1.3. The effectiveness of SMM for different business segments

Representatives of large businesses were among the first to realize the potential of social networks and began to actively use them to promote their companies. Through social networks, large businesses usually solve strategic long-term marketing tasks: branding, increasing awareness of the target audience, increasing loyalty and trust in brand products, tracking the opinions and sentiments of the target audience. SMM campaigns of large businesses are characterized by large coverage, work on several platforms and interactivity of communications. Large companies pay attention to working with reputation, in particular monitoring and neutralizing negativity. Representatives of the following areas of large business are highly active on social networks: developers and builders, manufacturers, banks and other financial institutions, film studios, service network operators and retail chains.

In recent years, many small and medium-sized businesses have appeared on social networks, for which tools are relevant that allow them to quickly solve tactical problems: announcing discount promotions, stimulating users for repeat purchases. Trade, local producers, the service sector and the tourism sector are more represented on social networks.

It is not surprising that representatives of the online industry are also active users of SMM. The main task for them is to obtain high-quality traffic with high conversion (that is, conversion into sales, registration or other targeted actions). The most relevant tools for them are the creation of communities, blogs and microblogs, targeted advertising, placement of teasers in “traffic-intensive” communities and blogs. Social networks are also effective for attracting attention to the project. More often than others, SMM is used by online stores, online services, online startups and coupon sites.

Contrary to popular belief, B2B products and services can be effectively promoted through social media. The main strategy in this case is to find representatives of the target audience. To do this, you can create your own communities, conduct targeted work with representatives of the target audience, and use targeted advertising (by profession or education). The b2b sector is represented in SMM by advertising, IT, financial, legal and HR companies.

However, there are areas for which SMM is ineffective. In most cases, for companies engaged in expensive, highly specialized b2b activities in construction and industry, promotion on social networks will not produce results for the following reasons:

    It is difficult for companies in this sector to target advertising campaigns specifically to those people who make purchasing decisions;

    in such companies, decisions are traditionally made based on the results of personal meetings, which is due to limited supply and demand;

    These industries have few news items of interest to the audience.

For this sector, promotion through industry media (including online publications) and search contextual advertising will be more effective.

1.4. Objectives of an SMM campaign

  • traffic donation (in the community the user receives information about the product, as well as a link to the selling page of the corporate website or online store);

    autonomous trading;

    repeat sales (after a person has joined a community or subscribed to a blog, you get the opportunity to constantly tell him about new products, bestsellers, special promotions. As a result, you stay in touch with him all the time, and the number of repeat sales increases sharply);

    branding;

  • neutralization of negativity;

    personal branding.

1.5. Launch of an SMM campaign

    make a list of tasks that you plan to solve through social networks;

    determine the characteristics of the target audience (socio-demographic, behavioral, psychological, professional);

    register profiles or communities on selected sites;

    find platforms (communities, blogs, forums) where your target audience already exists;

    determine the nature of your audience’s activity on these platforms (passive observers, discussion participants or content generators);

    choose a style for presenting information that will be suitable for the target audience (formal, moderately informal, professional, informal);

    determine which topics are of greatest interest to your audience;

    make a list of twenty topics that are interesting to your audience;

    create a list of key content areas for the campaign;

    make a list of the titles of the first twenty posts;

    determine the frequency of publication for each site;

    develop a system for assessing the completion of assigned tasks;

    determine the labor resources that will be needed to implement the campaign (whether you will conduct the campaign yourself or outsource it);

“The VKontakte audience is young and active, while on Facebook it is more mature and wealthy. Promotion on Facebook is more expensive, but this social network is more stable; “VKontakte offers more opportunities for targeting, but often changes the rules unilaterally.”

2. SMM campaigns in different social networks

2.1. « In contact with»

VKontakte was one of the first social networks to appear in Russia, which developed rapidly: a year after its launch, millions of profiles were registered on it. From a marketing point of view, VKontakte has its advantages (a large and active audience, the popularity of the group communication model and the possibility of deep targeting) and disadvantages (a young audience and the force majeure factor due to new rules that the network administration periodically implements). Nevertheless, VKontakte is the flagship of Russian SMM promotion, and it is here that most of the successful cases are implemented.

15 steps for effective promotion on VKontakte:

  1. Decide on the format and positioning of the community.
  2. Register your community.
  3. Place a community widget on your website.
  4. Brand your community according to the algorithm given in the book.
  5. Think through and introduce motives for joining the community.
  6. Open 10 discussion topics.
  7. Create at least three photo albums.
  8. Write the community rules.
  9. Find at least ten non-profit communities related to your topic.
  10. Contact the administrators of these communities and offer them cooperation.
  11. Define targeting options for your target audience.
  12. Prepare and launch an ad for the targeted advertising system.
  13. Work to increase click-through rates and reduce the cost of an attracted user.
  14. Analyze statistics.

An example of designing and launching a community on VKontakte:

    Promotion object: online clothing store for children 0–6 years old.

    Characteristics: multi-brand store, mid-price clothing.

    Tasks: sales stimulation (key task), branding.

    We determine the audience using multitargeting - a breakdown of the target audience in order to individualize the ad and track which ad will have the highest conversion: women aged 20–26 years; women who indicated their interests as “children”, “family”; women who are members of communities dedicated to family, children, and motherhood; women aged 45–57 years (grandmothers).

    We determine the type of community: we need to make the community as informative as possible, in particular, integrate reference information into it. The group format is better for this, since it allows you to use the Wiki markup system.

    We determine the positioning of the community: since the main task is sales, not branding, the positioning format based on interests will be relevant. Thus, we can call the group “Young Parents Club”, “Fashionable Children”, “Being a Mother Means...”, etc.

    Branding the community: in a group it is worth creating 10–15 photo albums in which the main products of the store will be presented, and several albums where users can add their photos. The “News” section will contain a catalog of models available in the store. The “Discussions” section will be where communication between community members will take place.

    Promoting the community. Four main tools are suitable for promoting a group: placing widgets on the website, targeted advertising for four audience segments, announcements in popular communities and competitions.

    We fill the community with content. Updating the community 3-5 times a day will allow you to constantly connect with your audience. Main content categories: model announcements; user-generated content; recommendations for children's style; recommendations for child care; children's nutrition and health; consultations with specialists; photo and video materials. Model announcements should be made in the form of links to pages where these clothes can be purchased.

    We define a system of metrics. The main performance indicators will be: the number of users in the community; traffic to the site and the number of targeted actions performed by users from social networks.

2.2. Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social network in the world. It has hundreds of millions of active users and hundreds of thousands of company pages. In Russia, Facebook was not very popular until the Russian-language version appeared in 2009. However, now it is one of the key tools of an SMM specialist. Among the main features of Facebook are a rather complex interface, an adult and wealthy audience, expensive promotion and a branded format (users willingly join communities dedicated to a brand).

10 steps to launch a Facebook campaign:

  1. Create a page.
  2. Draw a cover and avatar.
  3. Write text for the “About Us” section.
  4. Prepare the tabs.
  5. Publish at least ten posts on the microblog.
  6. Define your targeting options.
  7. Launch an advertising campaign.
  8. Select key posts to promote using Promoted Posts.
  9. Monitor your click-through rate and work to improve it.
  10. Analyze statistics.
As an example of preparing a strategy for Facebook, let’s take the page of a large bank.

    Objectives: increasing awareness of the target audience about banking products (deposits); increasing confidence in the bank.

    Determination of content vectors (main topics to be revealed): analysis of the response of the target audience to various news feeds; analysis of the content of other platforms with a high concentration of target audience; tracking the interests of the target audience.

    Content publishing frequency: 1–2 times a day.

    Types of content: Content posted should be varied and include text, photographs, videos and links.

    The content vectors should be as follows:

  • description of products (the most selling category of posts);
  • consulting promotions (users ask questions, and a bank specialist answers them);
  • cases and reviews (it is important for potential clients to see that other people have entrusted their funds to this bank and received the expected results); cases must be real, otherwise your reputation may suffer;
  • internal mechanisms of the bank: most people are afraid to invest their money in a structure whose operating principles they do not understand, so it is important that part of the content talks about how profit in deposits is generated, how the security of deposits is ensured and what various services are responsible for jar;
  • special promotions for page subscribers;
  • general information: recommendations on personal investments, financial management, time management and career;
  • infographics: graphically presented information on a financial topic;
  • master classes: training videos from bank employees and experts;
  • humor in photo and video format, but the number of humorous posts should not exceed 1 per week.

“Monitoring user attitudes towards products and brands on social networks is maximally automated, not labor-intensive, relatively cheap and fast compared to monitoring in classical marketing.”

3. Monitoring and evaluation of effectiveness

As in classical marketing, in SMM it is necessary to monitor user attitudes. Monitoring is a search for mentions of a company and products on social networks and blogs, as well as further processing and analysis of the collected information. Moreover, if in traditional marketing monitoring requires labor-intensive research, surveys, and work with focus groups, then monitoring social networks is less labor-intensive and almost completely automated. Monitoring helps to effectively solve a number of marketing problems:

  • timely detection of negativity;
  • analysis of competitors' activities;
  • evaluation of promotion effectiveness;
  • receiving feedback, searching for thematic discussions.

For high-quality monitoring, it is necessary to form a semantic core (identify queries that will be monitored). The number of requests can vary greatly depending on the business area, product line and the general saturation of the information field. As a rule, the average size of the semantic core is 20–50 units. Here are some of the main categories of queries used for monitoring:

- Company brand. The main spellings are highlighted, including in different languages ​​and transliterated. Most systems have a heuristic semantic analyzer, so there is no need to separately enter spellings of the name with errors and in different cases (Facebook, Facebook, but not Facebook).

- Product brands. This category includes the names of the product line - for example, tariffs of cellular operators (Always Connected), names of car models (Volkswagen Golf).

- Last names, first names and patronymics of top managers. If the last name and first name are rare, then finding mentions is quite easy, but if this is a common combination (Ivan Sergeev, Alexander Petrov, etc.), then the information noise will be too great and most of the mentions will not concern the target figure. Therefore, it is necessary to add an additional request to the last name and first name. Usually this is either an indication of professional activity (“Alexey Ivanov, pharmaceuticals”), or position (“Alexey Ivanov, technical director”), or the name of the company (“Alexey Ivanov, Pharmakor”). This will significantly reduce the number of non-targeted mentions during the monitoring process.

- Competitor brands. It makes sense to track these requests if the task is to compare your own information field with the information field of competitors. However, it should be taken into account that monitoring each additional competitor increases the size of the semantic core and requires the involvement of additional labor resources.

- Industry thematic queries. Monitoring such requests is necessary if the task is to find thematic discussions. In this case, phrases are highlighted that users can use in discussions on a specific topic. For example, monitoring queries such as “choose a provider”, “which provider”, “advise a provider” will allow the Internet service provider to find targeted discussions.

3.2. Efficiency mark

One of the most important tasks of marketing activities is assessing the effectiveness of the campaign in order to understand how well the campaign was carried out, to what extent the campaign achieved its objectives and how the campaign affected the business as a whole.

The online environment provides greater opportunities for analytics than traditional marketing tools such as outdoor or television advertising, and social networks, through feedback mechanisms, allow you to analyze performance even more deeply. The most valuable sources of information for research are:

  • web analytics data (traffic, user activity, completion of targeted actions);
  • analysis of user actions on social networks (likes, comments, added materials);
  • internal statistics of communities and blogs on social networks (attendance, number of pages viewed, portrait of the audience);
  • monitoring data of social networks and blogs (number of mentions, their tone, resonance);
  • open statistics indicators on third-party sites (number of views on video aggregators, number of visits to a topic on forums);
  • classical sociological tools adapted for social networks (surveys, work with focus groups);
  • special marketing events (promotional codes, dedicated phone numbers).

Evaluating the effectiveness of an SMM campaign has the following goals:

  • Estimation of return on investment.
  • Correction of the ongoing campaign.
  • Assessing the feasibility of using certain tools.
  • Comparison of SMM results with the results of other marketing activities.

“It’s a myth that people don’t buy anything on social networks. Despite the fact that shopping is not the goal of social network visitors, they willingly join communities that offer interesting information. Properly planned and implemented interaction in a group leads its participants to make a purchasing decision.”

The following performance indicators are used in SMM:

- Audience coverage. For different social networks, audience reach is measured using different methods. Thus, Facebook and VKontakte make it possible to track this indicator through the built-in statistics system. A number of blog hosting sites also have their own statistics. For video hosting sites, the number of views adjusted for possible repeat visits (10–30%) is usually taken as an indicator of audience coverage. Audience coverage is calculated similarly for forums.

- Emotional indicators. In this case, the ratio of positive, negative and neutral statements is taken into account. If the number of negative mentions of a brand exceeds a certain level, then this either indicates the emergence of a serious negative news story, or a deterioration in attitude towards the company as a whole. The acceptable level of negativity is 15–25% of the total number of mentions.

- Engagement metrics. One of the main indicators of engagement is the number of social actions - any actions within brand communities: “Like” marks, number of comments, participation in promotions and competitions, uploaded content.

Conclusion


Promotion on social networks has a number of advantages over classic marketing and other online promotion tools. Advertising on social networks is interactive, if successful, quickly spreads through word of mouth, has a non-advertising format, and can be easily focused on the desired audience. Contrary to the myths about the high cost of promotion in social networks, SMM can be inexpensive and even free: competent organization of work in communities along with a clear definition of the target audience leads to a significant increase in sales.

SMM is effective for promoting small, medium and large businesses, for online companies and the b2b sector. However, for expensive, highly specialized b2b businesses in industry and construction, or businesses with spontaneous transactions, other types of marketing are preferable.

You need to plan SMM campaigns taking into account the characteristics of the chosen social network. The VKontakte audience in Russia is young and active, while on Facebook it is more mature and wealthy. Promotion on Facebook is more expensive, but this social network is more stable; VKontakte offers more opportunities for targeting, but often changes the rules unilaterally. Facebook users prefer to join communities dedicated to certain brands, while VKontakte visitors more often choose groups based on their interests.

Monitoring user attitudes towards products and brands on social networks is maximally automated, labor-intensive, relatively cheap and fast compared to monitoring in classical marketing.

The effectiveness of an SMM campaign is assessed using web analytics data, internal statistics of communities and blogs, monitoring data, open statistics on third-party sites, sociological tools, marketing activities and analysis of user actions.

Evaluation of a social media promotion campaign has the following goals: assessing the return on investment, adjusting the campaign, assessing the feasibility of using certain tools and comparing the results of SMM with the results of other marketing activities. Efficiency in SMM is assessed according to three parameters: audience reach, emotional indicators and involvement indicators.

Have you wondered what social media marketing is? in today's article we will find the answer to this question.

Social Marketing

Marketing Goal– help the product and the consumer interested in it find each other. There are many methods to achieve this goal. Undoubtedly, to get good results, you need to master all the methods, know the nuances of each of them, skillfully and competently select the option that suits a specific situation, and combine different ways of promoting your services and products. One of the most important conditions is a clear identification of “our own”. Knowing who needs your product, you have an excellent chance to ensure that your product and its potential buyer meet as early as possible, and the result of this meeting is a long-term, warm relationship. To obtain information about your audience, you must be able to be sincerely interested in their needs, experiences, dreams and plans. In order for your audience to feel the need for you (your product), you need to convey to them information about your advantages over similar offers, indicate your uniqueness, demonstrate personal interest in the well-being of your Clients (Buyers, Subscribers, Readers - the principle remains common to any type of promoted product).

Social networks are a promising platform for marketing work

Modern civilization has provided an excellent platform for conducting marketing research and advertising campaigns. The name of this site is . What is meant by this concept? – First of all, various social networks, blogs and microblogs, video hosting sites, etc. The concepts of social media and social networks are often identified, i.e. The term “social networks” has a greater meaning. For our article, this does not play a special role, since the basics of marketing work, which we will discuss below, are the same for the entire social media space.

Social Media Marketing Whales

So, promotion in social networks rests on two pillars - internal optimization of the resource and, in fact, promotion of this resource. (Again, by resource you should not understand something specific. Of course, first of all we mean a website, your own blog, business card site, portal and other “Internet object”. But by resource you can mean a brand, a specific product, a certain service, etc.).

Social Media Optimization

The complex of works that make up internal optimization is called in the English-speaking society. This phrase was first heard by Rohit Bhargava, vice president for strategy and marketing of the communications group Ogilvy Public Relations Wordwide, 5 years ago, in August 2006. Since then, search marketing has relied on .

Internal optimization involves carrying out activities that will result in increasing the attractiveness of your resource in the eyes of potential consumers. Relevance, exclusivity, easy presentation, usefulness - qualities that should be inherent in your resource following the results of SMO. And only after you gain confidence that your product can stand out from similar ones, you should introduce it through social media.

Social Media Marketing

Actions that lead to the direct promotion of a resource on social networks are united by the term – Social Media Marketing.

What is needed in order to social media marketing was it successful? We have already indicated the first condition - you need to optimize your resource for the interests and needs of the target audience. Further, you must understand that methods of “head-on information” are perceived as aggressive advertising and imposition of someone else’s opinion. I don’t think it’s worth telling what fate awaits a product promoted so straightforwardly. To interest the inhabitants of a special world, whose name is a social network, you must actively participate in their lives - regularly leave comments in thematic communities, vote in organized competitions, create interesting and useful topics. Links to your resource should be organically woven into the surrounding context, correspond to the topic of the issue being discussed, and be able to satisfy the information interest of those whom you send with this link to your product.

Adult Social Media Marketing

Over the years of its existence, social media marketing has strengthened, grown, and matured. Today, you can increasingly hear that the concepts of SMO and SMM have ceased to exist as separate stages - they are so closely intertwined in a single impulse to achieve a common goal. And the advancement itself, having successfully overcome the age of the first timid and uncertain steps, has grown in methods and technologies.

However, in order not to abuse your attention, I propose to talk about SMM technologies in a separate article.

And of course:

Collect information, analyze, draw the right conclusions - get rich!

When starting their own business or developing their small business, entrepreneurs may face the problem of lack of funding. Traditional marketing tools are often too expensive for small businesses. Social media marketing can be an accessible alternative for reaching current and potential customers.

Social marketing or Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a new and promising way to promote goods and services using all currently available social media channels (social networks, blogs, forums, etc.), with the ultimate goal of increasing volume sales Correct and reasonable use of SMM allows you to introduce the target audience to a brand (product, service), draw attention to the company’s activities, including increasing traffic to the company’s website.

The principle of operation of SMM - marketing in social networks is to promote blog entries and publications that users can distribute independently, being the target interested audience. Administrators can either take an active part in its further dissemination (advertising on social networks), or take a position of passive distribution, creating viral content. There is a recommendatory scheme for promoting a product, in which potential customers trust social opinion more than the direct advertising influence of the company.

Taking advantage of social networks

For the successful operation of the project, they use ready-made community capabilities that ensure the fulfillment of marketing tasks:

  • active interaction with clients- makes it possible to quickly respond to changes in demand for the product;
  • dissemination of information exponentially- content is transmitted within the network from one user to dozens or hundreds, from them further, etc.;
  • possibility of “spot”- it is possible to identify a specific segment of users according to specified criteria (gender, age, interests, preferences, place of residence) and target an advertising campaign to a specific segment;
  • hidden advertising format- product promotion is carried out in the format of advice, recommendations and messages about the personal experience of users, which has a productive effect on potential customers.

Directions for effective marketing in social networks

Not all business categories are considered relevant areas for product distribution in communities. Marketing works most effectively in certain categories:

  • for small and medium businesses. Social networks have some ready-made capabilities that ensure the implementation of marketing tasks: active 24/7 interaction with customers - the ability to quickly respond to changes in demand for a product (service); dissemination of information in geometric progression - information about a product (service), interesting content is transmitted from one user to tens or hundreds of others, etc.; “targeted” advertising - identifying a segment of users according to criteria (gender, age, interests, preferences, place of residence) and targeting an advertising company on this segment; hidden advertising - promotion of a product (service) can be carried out in the format of advice, recommendations and stories about personal experience, which has a productive effect on potential consumers.
  • Online sales platforms. The active development of direct sales platforms has become possible thanks to the emergence of new services in social networks. Users can not only communicate with each other, exchange opinions, but also choose the goods or services offered to them by reading reviews and comments from other customers.

The Most Suitable Products for Online Social Media Marketing

  • Direct sales. For example, selling clothes directly through a social network. Photos of samples with detailed descriptions, sizes, etc. are posted on the social network page. and information about the method of purchase is given. The task is to bring this page to a potential buyer with active advertising or viral content;
  • Brand promotion;
  • Reputation marketing(increasing the degree of trust in the company or reducing negative perceptions of users);
  • Attracting users to your online resource.

Social media marketing areas

  • Development of social networking sites. Historically, the first function of social networks was to restore online connections between old acquaintances. Today, connections have long been restored and social networks have changed the direction of development. They are the online representation of a person. This requires new services. Many developments are in great demand: searching for information, storing and editing files (including images), the ability to blog, communities, geosocial services. For many, social networks have become almost synonymous with the Internet. This is good ground for marketers.
  • Increasing interest in blogs. It is not enough to post single images with short captions and publish separate posts. It is important to have space for author’s publications, united by a single topic, with the ability to search and organize information. This attracts attention, creates a certain image, and sets the mood not only for contemplating something of an entertaining nature, but also for receiving educational content.
  • Growth of B2B direction, business with spontaneous transactions. Data from research firm Eloqua shows that 82% of B2B brands use social media as their top way to increase brand awareness. The real audience and goals of B2B companies on social networks: decision makers (top managers of companies); employees searching for possible partners and clients; potential employees. The following goals are pursued: increasing brand awareness; organizing a community of network users loyal to the brand for repeat sales; tracking and responding to mentions of a brand (service) online; increasing the number of positive reviews about the brand (service); increasing traffic to the company website from social networks; lead generation or direct sales.
  • Turning entertaining content into educational content. Entertaining content does not solve business problems and does not lead the user to the next stage of the content marketing funnel. It will never be able to convert a subscriber into a potential client. In addition, unique entertainment content is quite difficult to create, and a bad, ill-informed joke can undo a lot of previous steps. Therefore, the next logical stage is educational content, which is characterized by solving problems that are unattainable with entertainment content.
  • Specialization of individual areas of marketing, formation of the profession of SMM specialist. Social networks are actively developing, but there are still not enough good SMM specialists. can often offer either self-taught people or those who managed to master the profession based on their own bitter experience. We still don’t provide full-fledged specialized education on this topic anywhere.

Key Social Platforms for Small Businesses

Facebook

The world's largest social network. The age range is quite wide - from 18 to 45 years. There are many businessmen here, representatives of leading companies doing business abroad. Facebook has many convenient tools for representing your brand. There are many cases of using a page on this social network as your website. Gaming applications, questionnaires, gift applications, etc. are used to promote a name. Expensive goods and luxury services sell well on Facebook, because... the audience can afford to satisfy such desires.