UNIT VII

Social, mobile, and local marketing have transformed the online marketing landscape. Before
2007, Facebook was a fledgling company limited to college students. Apple had not yet
announced the iPhone. Online marketing consisted largely of creating a corporate Web site,
buying display ads on Yahoo, purchasing Ad Words on Google, and sending e-mail. The
workhorse of online marketing was the display ad that flashed brand messages to millions of
users who were not expected to respond immediately, ask questions, or make observations. The
primary measure of success was how many “eyeballs” (unique visitors) a Web site produced, and
how many “impressions” a marketing campaign generated. An impression was one ad shown to
one person. Both of these measures were carryovers from the world of television, which
measures marketing in terms of audience size and ad views.

Traditional desktop marketing, including most of local marketing to local audiences, remains the
largest part of all online marketing. Mobile marketing is aimed often at local audiences and is the
fastest growing form of online marketing, followed closely by social marketing on social
networks. Location-based marketing is in its infancy but it is also growing far faster than
traditional desktop marketing. SOURCE: Based on data from eMarketer, Inc., 2013a.

The Social, Mobile, Local Nexus

Social, mobile, and local digital marketing are self-reinforcing and connected. For instance, as
mobile devices become more powerful, they are more useful for accessing Facebook and other
social sites. As mobile devices become more widely adopted, they can be used by customers to
find local merchants, and for merchants to alert customers in their neighborhood to special
offers. Over time, these will become more overlapped as the three platforms become more tightly
coupled.
Around 25% of all Facebook visits are from mobile devices, and 30% of its ad revenue is
generated by its mobile audience. Likewise, local marketing and mobile are highly related: local
advertisers most often target mobile devices. And a considerable amount of mobile ad spending
comes from local advertisers. The strong ties among social, mobile, and local marketing has
significant implications for managing your own marketing campaign in this new environment.
The message is that when you design a social marketing campaign, you must also consider that
your customers will be accessing the campaign using mobile devices, and often they will also be
looking for local content. Social-mobile-local must be seen in an integrated management
framework (comScore, 2013a).

Social Marketing
Social marketing differs markedly from traditional online marketing. The objectives of
traditional online marketing are to put your business’s message in front of as many visitors as
possible and hopefully encourage them to come to your Web site to buy products and services, or
to find out more information. The more “impressions” (ad views) you get, and the more unique
visitors to your site, the better. Traditional online marketing never expected to listen to
customers, much less have a conversation with them, any more than TV advertisers expected to
hear from viewers.
In social marketing, the objective is to encourage your potential customers to become fans of
your company’s products and services, and engage with your business by entering into a
conversation with it. Your further objective is to encourage your business’s fans to share their
enthusiasm with their friends, and in so doing create a community of fans online. Ultimately, the
point is to strengthen the brand and drive sales, and to do this by increasing your “share of online
conversation.” There is some reason to believe that social marketing is more cost effective than
traditional marketing although this is still being explored.
Social Marketing Players

Fig: Socail Market players

Social, Mobile, and Local Marketing and Advertising

Social Marketing and Advertising Social marketing/advertising involves the use of online
social networks and communities to build brands and drive sales revenues. There are several
kinds of social networks, from Facebook and Twitter, to social apps, social games, blogs, and
forums (Web sites that attract people who share a community of interests or skills). In 2013,
companies spent about $4.2 billion on social marketing and advertising, and this is expected to
grow to about $6.45 billion by 2015. Next to mobile marketing, it is the fastest growing type of
online marketing. Nevertheless, in 2013, it represented only 10% of all online marketing and is
still dwarfed by the amount spent on search engine advertising and display advertising
(eMarketer, Inc., 2013j).
Marketers cannot ignore the huge audiences that social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and
LinkedIn are gathering, which rival television and radio in size.
In 2013, there were an estimated 1.1 billion Facebook members, 200 million active Twitter users,
50 million Pinterest members, and more than 225 million who have joined LinkedIn worldwide.
In the United States, in July 2013, Facebook had around 140 million unique visitors. Around
two-thirds of the U.S. Internet population visits social sites. It’s little wonder that marketers and
advertisers are joyous at the prospect of connecting with this large audience. Over 90% of U.S.
companies are using social networks for marketing purposes in 2013, and research has found that
social network users are more likely to talk about and recommend a company or product they
follow on Facebook or Twitter (eMarketer, Inc., 2012a, 2012b).
There are four features of social marketing and advertising that are driving its growth:
• Social sign-on: Signing in to various Web sites through social network pages like Facebook.
This allows Web sites to receive valuable social profile information from Facebook and use it in
their own marketing efforts.
• Collaborative shopping: Creating an environment where consumers can share their shopping
experiences with one another by viewing products, chatting, or texting. Instead of talking about
the weather, friends can chat online about brands, products, and services.
• Network notification: Creating an environment where consumers can share their approval (or
disapproval) of products, services, or content, or share their geolocation, perhaps a restaurant or
club, with friends. Facebook’s ubiquitous “Like” button is an example. Twitter tweets and
followers are another example.
• Social search (recommendation): Enabling an environment where consumers can ask their
friends for advice on purchases of products, services, and content. While Google can help you
find things, social search can help you evaluate the quality of things by listening to the
evaluations of your friends or their friends. For instance, Amazon’s social recommender system
can use your Facebook social profile to recommend products. Social networks offer advertisers
all the formats found on portal and search sites including banner ads (the most common), short
pre-roll and post-roll ads associated with videos, and sponsorship of content. Having a corporate
Facebook page is in itself an advertising portal for brands just like a Web page. Many firms, such
as Coca-Cola, have shut down product-specific Web pages and instead use Facebook pages.
Blogs and online games can also be used for social marketing. Blogs have been around for a
decade and are a part of the mainstream online culture. Around 26 million people write blogs,
and around 74 million read blogs. Blogs play a vital role in online marketing. Around 43% of all
U.S. companies used blogs for marketing in 2012. Although more firms use Twitter and
Facebook, these sites have not replaced blogs, and in fact often point to blogs for long-form
content. Because blog readers and creators tend to be more educated, have higher incomes, and
be opinion leaders, blogs are ideal platforms for ads for many products and services that cater to
this kind of audience. Because blogs are based on
the personal opinions of the writers, they are also an ideal platform to start a viral marketing
campaign. Advertising networks that specialize in blogs provide some efficiency in placing ads,
as do blog networks, which are collections of a small number of popular blogs, coordinated by a
central management team, and which can deliver a larger audience to advertisers.

The online gaming marketplace continues to expand rapidly as users are able to play games on
smartphones and tablets, as well as PCs and consoles. The story of game advertising in 2013 is
social, local, and mobile: social games are ascendant, mobile devices are the high-growth
platform, and location-based local advertising is starting to show real traction. The objective of
game advertising is both branding and driving customers to purchase moments at restaurants and
retail stores. In 2013, over 125 million people played games on their mobile devices, another 43
million on consoles, and another 97 million played online games with a PC. Of the online
gamers, about 80 million played social games, such as Zynga’s FarmVille, CityVille, and Words
With Friends. Between 2012 and 2017, gaming is expected to grow at nearly 40%, driven largely
by mobile app games and social site games.
Mobile Marketing and Advertising Marketing on the mobile platform is growing rapidly
although it remains a small part (7%) of the overall $43.3 billion online marketing spending. In
2013, spending on all forms of mobile marketing is estimated to be about $7.7 billion, and it is
growing at over 50% a year (eMarketer, Inc., 2013j). A number of factors are driving advertisers
to the mobile platform of smartphones and tablets, including much more powerful devices, faster
networks, wireless local networks, rich media and video ads, and growing demand for local
advertising by small business and consumers. Most important, mobile is where the eyeballs are
now and increasingly will be in the future: 143 million people access the Internet at least some of
the time from mobile devices.
Although still in its infancy, mobile marketing includes the use of display banner ads, rich media,
video, games, e-mail, text messaging, in-store messaging, Quick Response (QR) codes, and
couponing. Over 90% of retail marketing professionals had plans for mobile marketing
campaigns in 2012, and mobile is now a required part of the standard marketing budget. In 2013,
search engine advertising was the most popular mobile advertising format, accounting for over
50% of all mobile ad spending, and not surprising given that search is the second most common
smartphone application (after voice and text communication). Search engine ads can be further
optimized for the mobile platform by showing ads based on the physical location of
the user. Display ads are also a popular format, accounting for about 45% of mobile ad spending.
Display ads can be served as a part of a mobile Web site or inside apps and games. Mobile
messaging generally involves SMS text messaging to consumers offering coupons or flash
marketing messages. Messaging is especially effective for local advertising because consumers
can be sent messages and coupons as they pass by or visit locations. Video advertising currently
accounts for the smallest percentage of mobile ad spending, but it is one of the fastest growing
formats. Ad networks such as Google’s AdMob, Apple’s iAd, and Millennial Media are the
largest providers of mobile advertising.
Apps on mobile devices constitute a new marketing platform that did not exist a few years ago.
Apps are a nonbrowser pathway for users to experience the Web and perform a number of tasks
from reading the newspaper to shopping, searching, and buying. Apps provide users much faster
access to content than do multi-purpose browsers. Apps are also starting to influence the design
and function of traditional Web sites as consumers are attracted to the look and feel of apps, and
their speed of operation. There are over a million apps on Apple iTunes and Google Apps
Marketplace and another million apps provided by Internet carriers and third-party storefronts
like GetJar and PocketGear, app portals like dev.appia.com, and the Amazon Appstore. An
estimated 1.2 billion people use apps in 2013 worldwide (SocialMediaToday.com, 2013). By
2013, more than 100 billion apps had been downloaded.

Local Marketing: The Social-Mobile-Local Nexus Along with social marketing and mobile
marketing, local marketing is the third major trend in e-commerce marketing in 2013–2014. The
growth of mobile devices has accelerated the growth of local search and purchasing since 2007.
According to Google, local searches represented about 25% of all searches, and 50% of all
mobile searches in 2012 (Screenwerk, 2012; Searchengineland.com, 2012). New marketing tools
like local advertisements on social networks and daily deal sites are also contributing to local
marketing growth.
Spending on online local ads in the United States is estimated at around $27.6 billion in 2013 and
is expected to grow to more than $48 billion by 2017 (BIA/Kelsey, 2013). In contrast, spending
on traditional local advertising is expected to be flat during the same time period. The most
common local marketing tools are geotargeting using Google Maps (local stores appearing on a
Google map), display ads in hyperlocal publications like those created by Patch Properties,
aimed at narrowly defined communities, daily deals, and coupons.
The most commonly used venues include Facebook, Google, Amazon Local, Groupon,
LivingSocial, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Bing, and Twitter, as well as more specific location-based
offerings such as Google Places, Yahoo Local, Citysearch, YellowBook, SuperPages, and Yelp.
The “daily deal” coupon sites, Groupon and LivingSocial, and location-based mobile firms such
as Foursquare are also a significant part of this trend.