Unit 1

Social Media Concepts

 Definition of Social Media
Social media are the online means of
communication, conveyance, collaboration, and
cultivation among interconnected and
interdependent networks of people,
communities, and organizations enhanced by
technological capabilities and mobility.
 Definition of Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is the utilization of social
media technologies, channels, and software to
create, communicate, deliver, and exchange
offerings that have value for an organization’s
stakeholders.
4 Zones of Social Media
4 Zones of Social Media
 Zone 1 – Social Community
• Social Communities describe channels of
social media that focus upon relationships and
common activities people participate in with
others who share the same interest or
identification. The channels in social
community zone includes social networking
sites, message boards and forums and wikis.
All emphasise individual contributions in
context of a community, communication,
conversation and collaboration.
 Zone 2- Social Publishing
Social Publishing sites aids in dissemination of
content to an audience. The channels of social
publication blogs, microsharing sites, media
sharing sites and social blogging and social
bookmarking and news sites. Blogs are
websites that hosts regularly updated online
content, that may include text, graphics, audio
and video. Example Blogger, Wordpress,
Squarespace and Weebly.
Microsharing Sites also called micro blogging
sites works much like blogs except that there
is a limit to length of content you can post. A
micrshare could include a sentence, sentence
fragment, embeded video or link to content
residing on other website. Twitter limits posts
to 140 characters is an example of
Microsharing site.
Media sharing sites, like blogs hosts content,
but also typically feature videos, audio (music
and Podcasts), photos and presentations.
Example:
• Video sharing Sites- Youtube, Vsnap, Vimeo,
Vine
• Photosharing Sites- Instagram, Flickr, Snapfish
• Music and Audio sharing- Audiofarm,
Soundcloud
• Presentations and Documents- Scribd,
Slideshare etc.
• Social bookmarking services (i.e.sharing links
to other sites)- Diigo, Digg
 Zone 3 – Social Entertainment
This zone of social entertainment
encompasses channels and vehicles that offer
opportunities for play and enjoyment eg.
Social gaming and gaming sites, socially
enabled console games, alternate reality game
and entertainment communities like spotify.
Example of social entertainment sites are
Zynga, uGame, Second life, MySpace etc.
 Zone 4 – Social Commerce
• Social Commerce refers to use of social media to
assist in the online buying and selling of products
and services. Social commerce influences stages
of consumer decision making process. Channels
includes reviwes and ratings, deal sites and deal
aggregators, social shopping markets and social
store fronts. Groupon is an example of deal
vehicle, Example of review and rating vehicles are
Epinion and yelp. Etsy is an example of social
shopping markets. Yipit, Dailyflock, and 8coupons
are examples of deal aggregators.
 The fifth P of Marketing- Participation
• Social media offers marketers opportunities to reach consumers, where
they work and live. The element of participation in the key in this context.
Social media enables the customers to have more say in the products and
services that marketers create to enable their needs. Marketing is the
activity, for creating , communication, delivering and exchanging offerings,
that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large. The
classic view is that organisations accomplish these goals through a
marketing mix that includes the so called 4 p’s – product, price, place and
promotion. As the social media techniques continue to sprout around us,
we need to add the Fifth P- Participation. Now consumers can refer, give
feedbacks about products on online platforms and play in important role
in sales and marketing of various products. Whether our focus is to
improve customer service, maintain customer relationships, inform
consumers of our benefits, promote a brand or related special offer,
develop a new product, or influence brand attitudes, new social media
options play an important role.