Post by Trade Coach on Mar 1, 2017 1:14:41 GMT 1
Brand building has for so long been a global trend and has now become a major strategy adopted for penetrating, reclaiming, or dominating a market, as it is an effective way to connect with the target consumers. And lately, at the turn of this decade, the engagement of the social media platforms has become the darling of brand communicators.
Over time, corporate organizations have deployed other communication platforms to build their brands, giving them the desired personality in order to attract and sustain consumers: both present, prospective and future. And now the advent of social media has added a most formidable platform to connect and engage millions of individuals, especially the youths and the young at heart, that are regularly on Facebook, Badoo, Twitter and the rest of them. These are now helping marketers and their consultants to showcase their brands and promote a bond with the target.
With over 55,000,000 internet user in Nigeria, corporate organizations should have enough reasons to also deploy the social media platforms to engage with youths, with the commercial messages of their brands, to the end that their overall marketing communications objectives are achieved.
These days a number of Facebook”Like” pages and sponsored Twitter “Handles” appear on the individual’s timeline and she has a choice to “Like” the page or to discard it. By “Liking”a page, “feeds” get to the individual’s “Timeline” and latest updates from the organization deploying such a platform pops up at regular intervals. And the individual cannot miss these updates which most times are commercial messages about a brand or a group of them.
Further, organizations can also take advantage of the social media platforms to build a strong bond with their intended target by engaging “online commentators”. These are individuals with hundreds and thousands of “followers”, and the discerning marketer is also “following” such individuals to connect and engage other “followers” with commercial messages subtly passed on about their brands.
The social media specialists “tweet” the brands and products to their followers and with a number of “re-tweets” from other followers and friends, the message spreads across the social media platform, exposing all followers (now a captive audience) to the message, and it may become one of the ‘trending topics” if it gains more re-tweets. And in course of all of this, the commercial message becomes “viral”, becomes so popular with the intended audiences. The brand’s image ultimately gets a boost as intended.
However, while social media may be seen as an effective platform to reach out to millions of youths, there is the critical question of whether the message truly appeals to the potential consumers. The effectiveness of a social media campaign therefore is vital in determining the quality of messages and resources to be invested in it.
Opening a social media account is not a difficult thing, but the “Likes” and “Follow” it is likely to get few hours after the account has been activated, is what will determine how internet users will connect with the brand.
‘While social media may be seen as an effective platform to reach out to millions of youths, there is the critical question of whether the message truly appeals to the potential consumers”.
In Nigeria for instance, when a celebrity opens a social media account, such personality is set to get over a thousand “Followers” and “Likes” within an hour. Meanwhile, brands tend to angle for such instantaneous popularity, and most times, have to pay to appear as sponsored page on internet user’s timeline. If a brand can’t get a likely hit of a thousand “followers” hours after the opening of a social media account, what then is the possibility of the brand getting the intended engagement and connectivity with the internet users who are on the social media platform?
No doubt, most marketers desire that their brands enjoy improved bonding with the teeming internet users. Most have introduced inducements by way of offering gifts and free tickets to watch important events or even through recharge cards. When these are up, increase in followership usually occurs, the number of “Likes” expectedly comes up quite significantly, and the product becomes the subject of discussion, perhaps for as long as the inducement strategy is deployed. It may even become one of the ‘trending topics”.
