Justin Fletcher

Blog Assignment #2

IMC Platforms

               

                In choosing a social media platform there are several general factors that a business owner must consider to effectively advertise to his/her target market. The first is knowing what platform your potential customers are going to be on. These days the average social media user engages in twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and several other medias. In order to determine what platform to invest in the business owner must put in the marketing research. This research should give the business owner an accurate representation of which media to invest in, rather than investing in all of them. That being said, if the research suggests that your target market uses all forms of social media in an equally distributed ratio, then investing in three or more platforms would make sense. In my opinion the average consumer usually has a favorite social media platform that they use more than another platform. Another factor that relates to the first factor of marketing research is deciding what age group you want to go after. Certain social media sites cater to certain age groups. Through my experience in growing up during the social media “boom” is generally the older demographic (ages 30 to 40) stick with posting on Facebook while the younger groups (Ages 15 to 25) use Instagram and twitter to get their social media feed from.

                Here are the rankings of active social media users:  “Facebook: 1.28 billion ,Google+: 540 million, Twitter: 255 million, Instagram: 200 million, LinkedIn: 187 million, Pinterest: 40 million (Lee)”. Even though my personal experience ranks twitter and Instagram the most popular amongst the youth this raw data from buffersocial.com reveals Facebook absolutely dominating the social media market in terms of sheer numbers. I would attribute this to Facebook always being the very first form of social media anyone engages in due to Facebook being the first social media platform. The experienced user of Facebook then moves on to another platform based on their personal preferences. When a user engages in another form of social media after Facebook, they still retain their Facebook account to keep in contact with old friends, family members, etc. Facebook is the most popular because it’s the standard of social media. Here is some basic information backing that claim: “Facebook is still, far and away, the most popular social media platform, It boasts 1.19 billion worldwide users, 73% of the US adult population, The most evenly-distributed demographics of any platform (Scherer).” In summary, if your business promotes a product that deals with every age demographic you should take the safe route and invest in advertising on Facebook. But we all know how products can be differentiate and customized for smaller, more specific age groups.

                Twitter has a more active feed than Facebook because it provide customers to completely customize who they are following. Unlike Facebook, twitter allows the user to follow not just a person, but sports team, groups, news, bands, etc. with instant updates. The difficult part is deciding what type of ad to put in customers twitter feed. When I’m on my twitter I’ll see “promoted” tweets that are from accounts I’m not following. These tweets appear on my timeline based on what accounts I do follow, my activity based on personal tweets, and how often I actually use the app. These promoted tweets are discussed in an article from BusinessInsider.com. “Promoted tweets come in two sub-formats: Tweets that appear in your Twitter feed even if you don't follow the brand; and tweets that are paid to appear in response to search requests on Twitter. The interesting thing about promoted tweets is that they're sold on a cost-per-engagement basis, meaning  advertisers only pay when a user replies to, clicks or favorites the tweet, according to TBG. The result is that promoted tweets in search are far more effective than promoted tweets in your timeline feed, because they are triggered by the topic the user is attempting to find (Edwards).” Much like the simulation we engage in for class, the promoter only pays when the promoted tweet is actually clicked on or interacted with. When I see the promoted tweet that is unrelated to my timeline and don’t interact with it, that tweet is not charged to the promoter. This means that I can still see the advertisement, gets its message, and have the psychological remembrance embedded in my brain, and still not cost the company who sponsored the tweet any money. This is why I think twitter is the best form of social media advertising to the younger demographic of ages 15 to 25.

Here are some examples of effective twitter ads. The promoted section at the bottom of the tweets indicates that this tweet isn’t from anyone the customer has decided to follow, which automatically catches their attention. The other “normal” tweets are from actual accounts that the person is following.  (Images from Worstream.com)

Works Cited

Edwards, Jim. "How To Advertise On Twitter To Get The Best Results." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 07 Feb. 2013. Web. 22 Feb. 2016.

Lee, Kevin. "How to Choose the Right Social Network for Your Business." Buffer Social. Buffersocial, 21 Aug. 2014. Web. 22 Feb. 2016.

"Online Ads: A Guide to Online Ad Types and Formats." Types of Online Ads and Examples of What They Look Like. Wordstream Online Ads, n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2016.

Scherer, James. "Social Media Marketing: Which Platform Is Right for Your Business." Wishpond. Wishpond, 08 Jan. 2014. Web. 22 Feb. 2016.