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Facebook Marketing

Conference Paper · March 2013

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32nd International Conference on Organizational Science Development

SMART ORGANIZATION
High Potentials. Lean Organization. Internet of Things.
March 20th – 22nd 2013, Portorož, Slovenia

Facebook Marketing
Maja Djurica
Belgrade Business School –
Higher educationinstitution for applied studies, Belgrade, Serbia
maja.djurica@bbs.edu.rs

Nina Djurica
Higher school of professional business studies Novi Sad, Serbia
ninadjurica@yahoo.co.uk

Miha Marič
Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Kranj, Slovenia
miha.maric@fov.uni-mb.si

Marko Jovanović
Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Belgrade, Serbia
jovanovic.marko@fon.rs

Abstract
Social media has shifted consumer behaviors and will continue to shift them for the
foreseeable future. It has created new necessities for businesses and marketing, but
has also generated new opportunities. The main goal of this paper is to analyz
facebook marketing in light social media, digital and social world. This paper looks at
social media as a strategy more than as technology. It discusses how businesses
can apply social media tools given their industry, target market and larger marketing
and PR goals.

Keywords: social media, facebook, marketing, consumer, consumer behavior,

marketing strategy

1 Introduction
Marketing Management, according to Kotler and Keller (Kotler, Ph., Keller, K., 2006), is the
art and science in selection of target markets, and the ability of acquiring, keeping and
increasing the number of customers through the creation, delivery and communicating a
superior value to consumers. American Association defines marketing as an organizational
function and a set of processes of creating, communicating and delivering value to consumers
and customer relationship management in a way that brings benefits to the organization and
its stakeholders.

Peter Drucker, a leading management theorist, stated the following:

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"Since the purpose of business is to create and keep customers, it only has the two central
functions - marketing and innovation. The basic function of marketing is to attract and retain
customers with a profit. "

The development of modern information and communication technology had significant

implications on all-important dimensions of marketing, and in particular the way in which
organizations communicate with customers and the environment. Among the most important
information and communication technologies belongs to Internet, and Internet based social
networks. With the advent of social networking, marketing-based social networks have
become the most popular form of Internet marketing. Social networks have proven to be very
efficient and effective medium for sending commercial messages, advertising, branding and
promotion of products and services. Members of social networks are not only made of young
people looking for companionship, leisure and exchange of different bits, but they are also
made of more and more intellectuals and business people worldwide.

Marketing through social networks and social control is a process based on the promotion of
existing and potential customers (target market) to voluntary and free exchange of
information about a product or service, to comment, to Like it, and thus allow the
organization to ensure that the maximum amount of exposure of promotional message to
customer.

The social network is an online community made up of individuals and organizations who
share common interests and activities through various technological interactions, blogs,
instant messaging, newsfeeds, etc.. Social network is a free online service that enables users
to have a different forms of communication with the environment and the possibility of their
own presentations. Nowadays social networks are used by hundreds of millions of people.
Access to social networks require from users to create a profile, which includes demographic
data, description of interest, activities and knowledge. After creating a profile, users are able
to interact with other members of the social network (friends), who share the same or similar
interests and activities.

The development of social networks was preceded with the development of communication
via newsgroups or forums as the first form of internet socializing and discussion, as well as
the development of chat applet (eg Skype). Also, the development of modern information and
communication technologies, as well as increased connectivity speed and online
communicating has contributed to the evolution of social networks as the most common
forms of communication.

2 Overview of the social networks

The development of social networks has contributed to the development of new forms of two-
way communication with the target audience. This form of communication involves creating a
message, which will be the subject of a freely agreed exchange discussion by multiple users
through the social network. The main advantage of communicating via social networks is that
the organization in a very short time can get feedback on their products and services at
relatively low cost campaign, and in the short term, as well, may include specific groups of
customers. Here is the preview of the important characteristics of today's most popular social
networks.

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Facebook is the most advanced form of direct marketing that allows users to reach their target
market for free or for a minimal investment. Because of its local and global character,
advanced applications, and unstoppable growth, Facebook has huge marketing potential.
Through it, users announce the message they want to convey to others in different ways.

In addition, besides the young people, there is growing number of adults, intellectuals and
business people around the world who use Facebook.

Twitter allows you to directly communicate with each other by sending tweets. Tweet is
visible to all Twitter users, although it is addressed to a specific user. Twitter is very suitable
for the conversation between brands and people, or between people who do not know each
other personally. Like Facebook, marketers can use Twitter to get out their message and to
communicate with their associates. Because of the viral nature of Twitter, there is a greater
possibility for the message to reach the targeted audience. Unlike Facebook, Twitter targets a
smaller number of the people (audience).

One of the main advantages of Twitter lies in Twitter search. Users are able to go to
search.twitter.com and type in any word or phrase, and thus obtain a list of tweets that use the
particular word or phrase. When using this option, companies can follow the tweets that may
be relevant to them as a company and to find people with problems that their business can
offer to solve.

Quora is a social network that allows users to follow each other in one direction. Users of
social networks can track the topics they are interested in, and can also see and ask questions
regarding these issues, or to ask their own questions. If the company's target market on Quora,
it can be used as an important tool for market research.

YouTube is a social network for sharing video content, where users can upload, view and
evaluate the video clips. If user wants to post content it requires registration, but to browse the
content registration is not required, except for content that is not suitable for persons under the
age of 18. Through YouTube users can comment, add or take voice, or mark as "favorite"
other spots. They can also upload their own video recordings and create lists.

Google + as Google's version of social network, like Facebook, allows users to create links to
their social networking and sharing content. Google + has a greater emphasis on privacy, in
the sense that its interface encourages users to control with whom they share their details.
Google + users can divide their contacts into 'circles'. Through this function, users can divide
contacts into different groups they in the way they find it appropriate. Google + has Hangouts
feature (internal video function), which allows users to have video chat with other users.

LinkedIn network borrows many elements from Facebook concept of social networks, but it is
directed very professionally. Profile consists of detailed concerning users information on the
history of its profession. LinkedIn allows users to connect, to be part of a group and to follow
companies.

Foursquare and Gowalla are mobile geo-location applications that can be installed on
smartphones running Google's Android or Apple's operating system. These applications allow
users to be "checked" at their current location. The phone can detect the user's location and
display a list of user-generated events nearby. After "checking" the user has the option to

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share its position with friends on Foursquare or Gowalla sites, as well as on other social
platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Groupon and Living Social are known as platforms for the "bargain of the day". They act as
digital coupons, offering special benefits to its subscribers each day, which are created
according to their interests and location. User interest data is collected over time, both through
the use of opinion polls and is likely based on the type of coupons that users actually use.
Users can subscribe by e-mail and through applications for smart phones. The benefits that are
offered are discounts that are usually between 50% and 75% of the normal price.

Yelp, Google Places, Bing Local Business Portal are location-related applications that serve
the local comments. These applications use the local traditional businesses to create
awareness and start a business. Consequently, large companies have invested in creating their
own business directories.

Slideshare.net is the site where users can share and upload their presentations. Presentations
are often an effective way for presenting the topics and companies often create them for
marketing purposes.

Social networks allow a number of marketing activities, such as oral advertising, market
research, design and testing ideas, developing new products, improving relationships with
customers and other stakeholders, all forms of promotion and communication, and, all
marketing activities in general.

Marketing through social networks contribute to: increasing familiarity with the product or
brand, increases web traffic and enhancing e-commerce, strengthening presence in the search
engines (Search Engine Optimization), strengthen customer loyalty and trust, provides the
successful launch of new products.

Percent of People Who Use Social Networks Percent Yes

Do you ever use / have a profile on… (Poll Taken in early 2012)
Any social network 56 %
Facebook 54 %
LinkedIn 13 %
Twitter 10 %
Google+ 8%
Social Network Statistics Data
Total number of Facebook users worldwide 1.2 Billion
Total percentage of 18-24 year olds who already use social media 98%
Total percentage of people on Earth who use Facebook 11%
Total amount of minutes people spend on Facebook every month 700 billion
Average amount of time a person uses Facebook per month 15 hours 33 minutes
Total amount of people who access Facebook with phone 250 million
Total amount of websites that have integrated with Facebook 2.5 million
Total pieces of content shared on Facebook each month 70 billion
Total amount of unique YouTube users per month 490 million

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Total amount of YouTube page views per month 92 billion
Total amount hours spent on YouTube per month 2.9 billion
Total amount of articles hosted by Wikipedia 17 million
Average pictures uploaded to Flickr per minute 3,000
Total amount of pictures hosted by Flickr 5 billion
Average amount of tweets per day 190 million
Percent of teenagers who log on to Facebook over 10 times per day 22%
Percent of Facebook users under the age of 10 25%
Percent of teens that view social networks as unsafe 59%
Percent of Americans who aren’t confident in their ability to use privacy settings 24%
Average Hours Per
Top ten most engaged countries for social networking
Month
Israel 11.1
Argentina 10.7
Russia 10.4
Turkey 10.2
Chile 9.8
The Philippines 8.7
Colombia 8.5
Peru 8.3
Venezuela 7.9
Canada 7.7
United States 7.6
http://www.statisticbrain.com/social-networking-statistics/

Considering the fact that the social networks are transforming rapidly, spreading, growing and
decaying (e.g. MySpace), organizations need to implement specific marketing techniques in
order to obtain the maximum benefit from marketing on social networks. It should be noted
that access to Twitter is not the same as Facebook, as well as access You Tube differs from
Facebook.

The development of smart phones and mobile application enables users to "carry" their profile
on the social network with them. The data shown in the table below refers to the effect of a
new era of marketing that has already begun.

Top 5: Smartphone Vendors, Shipments, and Market Share, Q2 2012 (Units in

Millions)
2Q12 Unit 2Q12Market 2Q11 Unit 2Q11Market Year-over-year
Vendor Shipments Share Shipments Share Change
Samsung 50.2 32.6% 18.4 17.0% 172.8%
Apple 26.0 16.9% 20.4 18.8% 27.5%
Nokia 10.2 6.6% 16.7 15.4% -38.9%
HTC 8.8 5.7% 11.6 10.7% -24.1%

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 ZTE 8.0 5.2% 2.0 1.8% 300.0%
Others 50.7 32.9% 39.2 36.2% 29.3%

Total 153.9 100.0% 108.3 100.0% 42.1%

Source: http://www.allaboutsymbian.com

3 Social network “Facebook”

Facebook is a social network on the Internet, which was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckeberg,
a former Harvard student. Initially “his” Facebook was only available to Harvard students
who could communicate and exchange information in this way. Soon the network spread and
today access for this social network is enabled for everyone above 13 years of age. Mark took
the name "Facebook" from the school publication that consists from the pictures of the former
and active students, which purpose was to make students know each other better. Today, the
website has more than a billion users. To access this network, the user must create a profile.
Facebook users set their status profile that is visible to all who visit that page.

Facebook has the "News" option through which users can see popular and relevant activities
of their friends and social parties with which they are associated. "News," is the Home page
of the user, when the user logs on to Facebook.

Facebook determines what content is popular and relevant to the user via an algorithm which
is known as EdgeRank (EdgeRank: The Secret Sauce That Makes Facebook's News Feed
Tick | TechCrunch." TechCrunch. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Dec. 2011).

EdgeRank is determined according to the following formula:

This algorithm operates according to the following formula:
EdgeRank = for all edges e, ∑ u e w e d e
Where:
ue = affinity score between user and edge creator
we = weight of edge type (comment, like, tag, etc.)
de = time decay factor

Facebook users who commented on the status of another user creates an edge, because the
interaction is visible change. On the other hand, if the is user just looking at the profile of
another user it does not create the edge, because there is no physical manifestation of the
interaction. Affinity score, u e , for one edge is a measure of the level of correlation between
the user and the edge that is relevant. If users shared messages on walls, comments, mutual
friends or images, there is a chance to have a high affinity score and therefore have a higher
position in Facebook updates. Speed degradation as a factor of EdgeRank is currently
unknown and is probably sometimes set by Facebook.

Facebook also offers the option of "Facebook connect", which enables users to log onto third-
party sites using their Facebook account. This option allows for deeper interaction of
Facebook option to share on the site. For example, since the user already entered on
Facebook, it can be directly share that web site page on Facebook.

Research Facebook marketing platform Buddy Media supports the following strategies for the
high-ranking algorithm EdgeRank ("facebooks-edgerank.pdf." Facebook's EdgeRank: How to

148
Make Sure You're in the News Feed. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Dec. 2011):: 1. Ask questions on your
Facebook page for fans ("Would you?" Provides the most engaging), 2. Set games and trivia,
3. "Interact" with fans, 4. Use the coupons, surveys and other unusual publication, 5. Use
relevant photos, 6. Refer to current events, 7. Insert a video, 8. Publish timed content, 9.
Broadcast links, 10. Be explicit in your disclosures.

Facebook also allows for the producers of online content to set the "like" option to their
online content. If a Facebook user chooses to click "like" on a particular piece of content,
Facebook will update the user's status and will place a link to a page that the user likes. It
follows that the option "Like" on Facebook generates viral messages.

Search engine optimization (Search Engine Optimization - SEO) involves the use of strategies
and tactics to better rank search results. SEO website for the search engines is the process of
improving the quality and quantity of traffic from search engines to a Web site through the
search results. According to search engine SEO, the "Like" is considered as a kind of vote for
the content or link of that content. If the site is ranked higher (for example, comes among the
first in the list in searches) more traffic will be diverted to the search to a specific site. Sharing
content on Facebook enables improvement of SEO.

4 Development of marketing strategies on social media

Development of effective outreach strategy in social networks requires implementation of a
series of activities that take place through several successive stages:

1. Defining the goals of participating in social networks

Marketing objectives derived from business goals of organization and contribute to its
realization. Marketing objectives should be clear, measurable, realistic and time-bound. A
particular problem in setting these goals is possibility of confusion between planned
objectives and ways to achieve those goals.

In order for qualifying something as a valid marketing goal, the following conditions must be
satisfied:
➢ Specification of the desired outcome (such as, for example, increasing awareness about the
company, product, brand, attraction, retaining, and increasing the number of customers,
increasing the number of members of the mailing list, increasing website traffic, building
incoming links to a site, and etc.); Clearly defined outcome in order to avoid any ambiguity
and to ensure reliable measurability; The percentage of outcomes must be proposed;
Specification of the time period for achieving the desired outcomes.

Without well-defined goals, it is impossible to correctly assess the outcomes and create a
marketing strategy. When company develops appropriate marketing strategies it also must
develop detailed implement programs for conduction of the Marketing plan. Well-formulated
marketing strategy can be "sabotaged" by bad implementations. The implementation must
take into account the budget, accountability and evaluation. Also, the implementation must be
limited in time. However, no matter how well planned a marketing plan is, the market is
subject to constant change, so it is possible that some of the planned activities can become in
certain time inappropriate or ineffective. Companies should be able to respond to changes in
the marketing environment and to change marketing strategy in accordance with the latest
information on changes in the environment.

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2. Market Research
Research of the target market is of crucial importance in the process of building marketing
strategies from whose quality largely depends the success of advertising campaigns on social
networks.

Companies need to collect data on the characteristics, needs and social activities of targeted
consumer groups on social networks and create programs that will attract them. Companies
also need to identify the social networks that their target audience use, and also, find a target
audience based on their e-mail data base by using the service to find their friends on social
networks and in that way identify the social networks on which they need to occur and
engage.

3. Creating a communication message

Message is the foundation for achieving the goals of communication. This is a set of signs,
symbols, words, images and sounds that the sender sends and which activate the raising of
awareness, creation of preference and reinforcement of the positive attitude toward specific
product/service or brand. When creating a specific communication messages, the company
needs to decide what is a message that should be sent to the targeted audience, create its
profile web-page on the social networks, choose colors that match the company's logo and the
alike.

The basic elements of communication messages are: the text of the message, the graphical
elements and schedule.

Text messages should be credible, understandable, unique and special in order to get the
attention, interest, desire and action from the audience. Attractiveness of the content of the
message depends on the type of the social network. The content of the message that is
attractive among Facebook users probably will not have the same popularity on Likedln-in.

Graphic elements are the carriers of visual symbols and ideas meanings in a propaganda
message. There are two basic types of graphics: photos and artwork. The artwork has a major
role in the propaganda messages which is dominated by the idea, that it is easier to illustrate
by the stunning artwork than by natural images. Using graphics leaves room for multiple
interpretations, which cannot be avoided, so you should create a message that will tangle of
possible interpretations and focus graphic on the benefits of the product or service.

Layout-design presents the functional and attractive allocation of propaganda messages.

4. The choice of social networks

The company should choose a social network that will actively be used in achievement of its
marketing (business) goals. The choice of social networking is based on market research
results, which provide information on the presence of the target audience and their
preferences about the social networks. Using social media is free, but to establish and build
business relationships in social media there are certain costs (time and human resources).
Therefore, the company needs to decide which social networks will have an active
participation and make maximum use of all media and channels of communication.

5. Management propaganda campaign in social media

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 If a company does not decides exactly and analyze comprehensively the target audience, it is
unlikely that the propaganda campaign will succeed. Identifying and analyzing the target
audience is the first stage in the development of strategies for the promotion. Effective
management of propaganda campaign requires from the company to assign certain employees
for managing the propaganda campaign in social media, to post the content and share links, to
write and edit blogs, respond to comments and questions, to update their profile, to monitor
statistics and accomplishments. The company decides whether to engage, only one person, or
a team or external associates for marketing in social media, for these activities.

6. Budgeting for social media marketing

When developing a marketing plan, the company should determine the budget for marketing
in the social media. Although social media and marketing tools are online for free, it does not
mean that the successful implementation of marketing strategies in social media does not
require cost.

If the company implements marketing strategies on social media without engagement of the
new human resources, existing workers will need to allocate some time to implement
marketing strategies in social media. On the other hand, outsourcing (e.g. marketing agencies)
for implementation of marketing strategies in social media also requires time and labor costs.
Successful implementation of marketing strategies excludes aimless surfing on the social
networks.

Literature
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EdgeRank: The Secret Sauce That Makes Facebook's News Feed Tick | TechCrunch. Web. 23
Dec. 2011.http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/22/facebook-edgerank.
Facebook's EdgeRank: How to Make Sure You're in the News Feed. Web. 23 Dec. 2011.
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Gligorijevic, M., Janicic, R., (2011): Integrated Marketing Communications in B2B
Companies, Brand Building, Ekonomske teme, Kragujevac.
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the Human Spirit, Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Canada.
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