This
is looking at the way in which social media products are used for
advertising and promotion. Bring in the theory we discussed in Unit 1
for c) – David Gauntlett (2010) and web 2.0, technological convergence,
that the audience are now ‘we media’ Dan Gilmor (2004)
P3 Learners explore commercial uses for social media products, including:
A) Advertising: Paid for advertising (e.g. pay-per-click/impression advertising, sponsored links, banner advertising)
B) Viral Marketing: Aspects
of promotional campaigns that are linked to and/ or passed around (e.g.
amusing visuals, free e-books, free short reports, free ‘how to’
guides), online mass message distribution by users (e.g. Hotmail adding
promotional footer to bottom of all users email), free online games
highlighting products/service/news stories, access to TV adverts online,
increased brand awareness
C) Product/Service Reviews: Advantages/disadvantages
of user generated reviews, influence of ‘personal’ recommendation for
others purchasing products/services.Exploring Commercial Uses for Social Media Products which include:
A) Advertising
B) Viral Marketing
C) Product/Service Reviews
Twitter:
A) Advertising:
Twitter actually features a form of paid advertising in the form of sponsored links and promotions. They provide a service that allows people put their brands and display them to an audience within a certain target area. It has the same effect of per se, Google Adwords. Users are able to generate royalty free revenue from their tweets and media sharing with an agreement with WENN (World Entertainment News Network). A self-service advertising system was implented throughout the years, going from invited individuals only to non-invitees. This service was made available to all all of the US.
B) Viral Marketing:
Twitter Is a platform for sharing which would mean that every form of viral marketing and anything that is currently trending will more than likely, if not definitely, appear on Twitter at some point. Due to the nature of users constantly sharing news and forming trends, every form of viral marketing will always be spread far from just Twitter itself but it can originate on Twitter since it is one of the most simplest form of being able to form a trend.
C) Product/Service Reviews:
In terms of reviewing products, it's not a very often explored area of Twitter due to how short the messaging system is; it can be used to link a page where the longer version of the review is located. It's technically a form of advertising. Influential people on Twitter may recommend products and it will more than likely be noticed more than a less known user; this could be both positive and negative since recommendations from well known users mean the product will be praised or it can be advised against.
Facebook:
A) Advertising:
Advertising on Facebook is based on advertising and promotions. Companies and people will pay Facebook to put up a series of sponsored advertisement across user feeds. Facebook may also use banner advertising and pay per click advertising by placing it on their browser based games. Advertising on Facebook is not as obvious as other forms of advertising since they are placed seamlessly.
B) Viral Marketing:
Facebook in terms of viral marketing is a heavily used medium for sharing viral features. This is most likely because of the huge amount of exposure there is between users, sharing trending subjects on a constant basis is what Facebook is mostly about, if not sharing general life and events. Due to the nature of Facebook and practically all social media, sharing en masse and between a huge chain of people is a common occurrence. However, there are certain negatives on Facebook; if the viral feature does not become large enough or was not large enough to begin with, it will most likely disappear before being able to be shared out.
C) Product/Service Reviews:
Facebook can be used for consumer reviews and can prove to be quite influential. The simplest form of providing product reviews is using a scoring based system i.e. stars and 'x out y' ratings. This is done in many ways such as films displaying awards, quotes from people and how it's rated by certain critics. This can be quite advantageous if said subject is as it is advertised. The main disadvantage is that if the advertisement is too far from the actual thing, it would mean that less people would believe the review on a future product for example.
Instagram:
A) Advertising:
Instagram uses short video advertisements that are placed in users feeds seamlessly with other videos and images from other users. Instagram does not heavily use other forms of advertising since it may intrude on a user's experience from casually browsing around.
B) Viral Marketing:
Viral marketing on Instagram is not quite as large as other mediums such as Twitter and Facebook since it tends to have it's own trends that is constantly shared between users. Existing trends that have been going on longer than new trends, tend to shadow the new trends. There are certain viral features that actually become a trend or a very heavily shared subject but they tend to be controversial subjects. On another note, companies that advertise clothing/fashion pay and sponsor models on Instagram to advertise their clothing for them. These models don't necessarily have to be well known models but can just be people who have a lot of followers and are able to advertise said fashion items.
C) Product/Service Reviews:
Product reviews/advertisements are not really used on Instagram but certain sponsorship and reviews can be noted as a form of advertisement. Products do happen to appear quite often on Instagram due to people constantly sharing just about anything that happens in their life.
