MKTG 347 Week 2- Engaging An Audience Through Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is an overwhelming endeavor. Individuals can get lost in a pile of marketing terms, missing the key points of social media marketing. To understand social media marketing, focus on the basics. Engaging an audience through social media marketing requires an understanding of the audience, attention, and monitoring. 

Identifying the audience of the product or service helps with engagement. According to Introduction to Social Media Marketing, there are two broad audience categories: business to consumer (B2C) and business to business (B2B). B2C focuses on the consumer. For example, Target’s primary consumers are individuals. B2B’s audience is another business.  B2B entails a longer sales cycle, more content, and more research than B2C. The type of audience impacts the approach taken to engage an audience through social media. 

Gaining the audience’s attention is a goal of social media marketing. To attract an audience, social media utilizes promotional and content posts. Introduction to Social Media Marketing describes promotional posts as discounts and contests. Content posts include interesting news or aspects of a company, product, or service. The nature of the business impacts the posts made. In a B2B setting, longer and more in-depth posts are ideal because followers are business-orientated. Shorter articles, reviews, or product intros are better for a B2C setting. After gaining the audience's attention, social media marketers should monitor them. 

Social media monitoring requires listening to the audience. An audience’s attention can be positive or negative. By listening to consumer’s responses to a product or service, a social media marketer can track a product or service’s excellence. In the article "It's About Time Lime", Skittles apologizes for taking away a beloved flavor. In 2013, Skittles replaced the lime skittle with a green apple flavor. Fast forward eight years, Skittles reverted back to the lime flavored green skittle due to the consumer’s displeasure in the change. Introduction to Social Media Marketing discusses monitoring tools, such as Radian6, to automatically track consumer response to brands, products, and keywords. Monitoring users is an important part of social media marketing.

Engaging an audience is a key part of social media marketing. To engage with an audience, a social media marketer must establish the type of audience. There are multiple ways to engage an audience through social media. Monitoring feedback allows marketers to establish excellence. Understanding the audience, gaining attention, and continually monitoring are aspects of social media marketing.

References:

Kelsey, Todd. Introduction to Social Media Marketing: A Guide for Absolute Beginners. 1st ed., Apress, 2017. 

“It's About Time Lime!” SKITTLES®, https://www.skittles.com/lime.