Privacy is “the ability of an individual to isolate themselves or information about themselves, therefrom express themselves selectively.”

The information can be identified on (1) whether it is true or not or (2) whether it is recorded in material form or not.

Recently, UK has planned to track the success of social distancing using customer’s mobile phone data. However, privacy campaigners want the policy to be radically transparent to gain customers trust.

Therefore, the government wants to adopt mobile technology to build models that can predict the virus movement and keep individuals data within strict privacy guidelines. They will ensure the checks and balances between privacy, consent and ethics are pivotal.

Self-Regulation and the Advertising Industry

Self-regulation is “a system where advertising, marketing, agency and media industry set voluntary rules and standards of practice beyond their legal obligations”. 

The purpose of self-regulation is enunciated clearly on AANA Code of Ethics to assure that “advertisement and any other forms of marketing communications are legal, decent, honest and truthful and they are constructed with a sense of obligation to consumer and society and a sense of justice and responsibility to competitors”.

Advertising self-regulation has been established in Australia for over 40 years. The current system is arranged by the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) in 1997. 

Advertisers support this system because they act responsibly and do not want to offend Australian public. They command their advertising agencies to comply with various Codes of advertising standards by concurring to the levy applied and adhere to Adverting Standards Board decisions. The advertising agencies will monitor the codes and decisions to create campaigns accordingly.

Ethics and data-driven advertising

Ethics are “moral principles that governs customer’s behaviour or their daily activities.”

Cookies

Cookie is a “small piece of data sent from a website and saved on the user’s browser to remember information or record browsing activity”.

BBC News website has incorporated cookies warning message at the top of their home page when a user visits site for the first time.

Geo-Tracking

Geolocation tracking for mobile marketing is used to create more tailored and pertinent marketing for potential customers.

Nordstrom integrates geolocation to enhance customer experience by giving push notifications to nearby customers when there are remaining items in the shopping carts.

It is important that advertising companies respect customer’s privacy by protecting their personal information and only using it for interests of the lives of society. They should act responsibly towards customers as well as their competitors and conduct their marketing activities that comply to the code of ethics.

Companies must make decisions regarding their appropriateness of actions. The advertising or promotion executed from customer data should be ethical towards customers.

Do you think companies should keep customer personal information when they conduct their marketing activities in the marketplace? Do you agree that the marketers should gather customer data to create feasible personalised and targeted marketing that will enhance customer experience?

I would like to hear your opinion in the comment section below. I will answer your questions and feedbacks with all of my best capabilities. Thank you for reading my articles and have a good day.

IMC is “the use of marketing strategies to optimize the communication of the consistent message of company’s brand to stakeholders”.

Brands must develop integrated digital marketing strategies by moving towards ‘omnichannel marketing’ to communicate with customers across multiple channels.

New and multidimensional IMC are necessary in digital space. However, brand may face four key issues to accommodate this need as following:

1. Community-centric strategic orientation

Customer-centric marketing treats customer at the center of a brand’s marketing strategies to deliver value from multiple channels. 

Disney provides Disney’s Experience where customers have privilege to plan their Walt Disney World vacation through their online website and mobile applications at home and on the road. Guests can purchase tickets or passes, reserve and manage dining, view daily showtimes and link hotel reservations.

Moreover, MagicBands wristbands help customers with everything such as getting instructions to space mountains and having their purchased food and merchandise delivered without charge for hotel guests.

2. Emergent strategy

Emergent strategy is set of actions that occurs unintentionally within corporation without any planning. 

Sam Walton built Walmart in rural settings to provide convenience for him to organize. He sold the products with cheaper price to entice customers to visit the store and supply the communities.

3. Hybrid communication mix

Nowadays, user-generated content is important for brands to drive more response from customers towards their products.

In 2014, Starbucks held a contest to encourage its customers to draw doodle on their white cups with the hashtag #WhiteCupContest. The winning white cup will be used as limited edition for their cup design. It evoked customer’s interest and generate 4000^th entries of cup sent to Starbucks.

4. Reciprocity-based assessment

Brand must capable to provide products and services that will be beneficial for both customers and the firm itself.

Spotify launches Spotify Premium that offers Ad-free music streaming with offline mobile access. Customers will be able to use this service with 30-day free trial that can be cancelled any time. People love to listen to music without interruption and wish to access it anywhere. They may not want to stop the payment when the free trial ends when they just need to pay for $8/months.

IMC will be more effective when utilized as part of an integrated approach:

• Coherence: different communications are logically connected
• Consistency: multiple messages support and reinforce
• Continuity: Communications are connected and consistent through time
• Complementary: synergistic, sum of parts is greater than the whole

To create a successful IMC, there are 7 steps that needs to be fulfilled which are:

1. Understand who your target audience is

Brand should understand what their target customers wants and needs

2. Pick the right channels

Brand must know the channels that can help them accomplish their objectives and what channels does customers use

3. Have a consistent look 

Brand should give customers a particular feeling and should be consistent across various channels

4. Create consistent content that can be adapted to suit different media or channels

Three C’s: Communications must be clear, Compelling to target audience and Consistent across various channels

5. Ensure that the message is integrated

6. Make sure your marketing teams/agencies are working in sync

7. Don’t forget to track your campaigns – and coupons

Brand must create an integrated IMC strategy to communicate consistent message across multiple channels. Brand must solve the issues that avoid their objectives to be accomplished and follow the steps to create successful IMC campaign. As a result, customers will move towards your brand to help them deliver the value that they want to achieve. 

What do you think about IMC? Do you think the brand should integrate IMC in their business strategy? Let me know what you think in the comment section below. I will be happy to see all of your thoughts. Feel free to ask me more questions regarding the subject.

Search engine is a “software system that is designed to search world wide web to gather information”. 

There are three basic components of search engine as following:

1. Web crawling

The “spider” will tell which pages to crawl and send particular information to index

2. Index

Multiple keywords that shows up in a database when user enter their query in search engine

3. Query processor

Represents Search Engine Result Page (SERP) to answer customer’s query in the index

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) 

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is “an action of promoting websites through search engine and encourage people to click through the website”.

SEM may adopt Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and enhance pay-per-click (PPC) lists. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process of improving the quality content of the website by deciding crucial keyword to achieve higher ranking in search engine result pages.

There are seven steps to SEO fitness which are:

1. Goals

Companies must define the goals they want to achieve. They have to identify customer behaviour and set the goals accordingly.

• Keywords

Companies must identify prominent keywords that they want to appear in search engine to help customers find information easily

• On Page SEO

Get Your Website to “Speak Google”. SEO must be friendly with customers and Google where the website is capable to speak algorithm such as html tag, image tag and meta description 

• Content Marketing

Create Quality Content for Google and for Humans. Companies must produce content that has purpose and relevant to customer. As the world keeps changing and evolving, they also need to update their content according to the current situation 

5. Off Page SEO

• Build Links: Create website that links to your website
• Leverage on social media: The content must be up-to-date and generate positive review. Companies may provide link that leads to their website for higher ranking on SEO 
• Go local: Companies should focus to their business location and create content that relates to stuff around the business

6. Metrics

Measure and Learn from Your Results. Companies must monitor the strategy that they establish to see if it’s actually improving and lead to a good result 

7. Learn

Never Stop Learning! Companies need to acquire trusted source to obtain current and up-to-date information to remain on the top

Straight North is one of digital marketing agency that specializes in SEO. They are well-known for its award-winning search engine optimisation services. Many businesses choose Straight North for SEO solutions to increase traffic volume, leads and sales.

Black Hat & White Hat

Black Hat

Black hat strategies exploit deception and manipulation to achieve their goals and objectives. There are several Internet marketing strategies that associate with black hat including:

1.  Keyword stuffing

Keywords are used to acquire higher ranking on search engine result page although users might not get exactly what they want.

2. Doorway pages

Web pages that are created to manipulate search engine indexes by redirecting the user to third party site.

3. Link farming

Group of websites that that represents hyperlink to others site of the group 

White Hat

White hat strategies focus on producing relevant content, use keyword on website pages and quality inbound links.

 Paid Search Marketing 

Pay-per-click (PPC) is Internet advertising model to boost traffic volume on websites where advertiser pays for every click on the search engine.

Apple had deployed Google AdWords image extensions to search on various ways to use their iPad. The ad is incorporated with sitelink ad extensions that encompass direct response call-to-action and product information.

Analytics

Analytics is a “technique to assess and improve contribution of e-marketing to business such as referrals, clickstreams, traffic volume, leads and sales”.

Google Analytics

Google analytics is a web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic. Its approach is to deliver in-depth data and high-level dashboard type of data. Google Analytics launched Real Time analytics that enable user to track visitors on the site.

Facebook Page Insights

Facebook provides dashboard to track activity and fans on Facebook page including Page Likes, Post Reach and Engagement. 

Search engine has become valuable tools to help companies expand their businesses rapidly. With the help of search engine optimization (SEO) along with enhancement of Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Google provides valid and trustworthy information at the top of their page. 

On the other hand, companies may undertake analytics to identify customer behavior from traffic volumes, leads and sales. Both of the tools contribute to businesses profitability and sustainability in the marketplace. 

What do you think of search engine optimization, pay-per-click and analytics? Do you think these tools can help companies to improve their business? Let me know what you think in the comment section below. I would be very happy to hear your opinion and answer your question.

Internet of Things (IoT) is a “widespread presence of various of devices such as sensors, actuators and mobile phones that provides capability to interact and cooperate with each other to reach common goals”.

There are two majors driving forces behind the development of IoT as following:

• Increase ease of connections to sensors 

Sensors are capable to interact with different devices regardless of different technologies that they have. For example, sensor in the key may unlock the door at the house and communicate message that allow the lights to turn on and thermostat sets room temperature to normal.

• Improved ability to access and analyze the data generated

IoT provides marketing automation that capable to produce customer information such as their preferences, hobbies etc. Multinational companies can deploy the information to sell their offerings and create customer-focused products and services. Companies will be able to interact and captivate more potential customer and establish loyal customer at once.

Some of the few examples of IoT applications that we are able to identify in real life are:

• Smart buildings

Intel, American multinational corporation and technology company has been adopted smart buildings on their operations. Intel’s are adopting ecosystem of equipment manufacturers and systems integrators that rely on Intel’s technology to execute smart building solutions that are secure, scalable and interoperable.

A solid technology foundation that they have implemented are including:

                        1) Accelerate Development

Using Intel’s pre-validated building blocks with design resources and development tools to accelerate the process of delivering smart building IoT products and solutions.

2) Add Intelligence Anywhere

Intel put its data across building operations to acquire higher level of business     intelligence.

         3) Consolidate Systems

Intel enables high performance and virtualization to gather information and operation technology.

• Smart appliances

LG Artificial Intelligence platform, Instaview ThinQ, allow Alexa to inform customers on the recipes and add it to the shopping list when the ingredients are run out. The smart fridge provides apps to allow customers to put more ingredients on the fridge. 

Amazon Dash buttons let customers restock the content with just one tap while two taps will turn the display on transparent where customers can check the ingredients inside the fridge. It also provides panoramic camera where customers can look inside the fridge through their mobile phones.

• Smart TV

Samsung launched Smart TVs to provide access of streaming content where customers will be able to search their favorite movies, games etc. while connect to other devices. There are several features of Samsung Smart TVs that people can enjoy which are:

1) Streamlined for simplicity

Samsung provides seamless connections with intuitive features that avoid false assumptions of Smart TV.

              2) An intelligent, holistic experience

Smart TV along with Smart Things are able to connect to extensive range of connected devices in the house to automate life and make life easier.

                   3) Endless entertainment

Universal Guide feature bring all your favorite movies, shows and music in one place and provide recommendations to customer who might find it difficult to choose the content that they want to watch.

             4) Intuitive controls

Samsung Smart TV provide easy connections through One Remote and Auto Detect. The voice assistant command customers to ease the process of setup and find contents faster.

            5) Effortless home control

Customers will be able to control their connected devices at their    convenience with Samsung Smart TV such as changing room temperature and viewing security cameras.

• Wearables

Apple’s own technology extension products, Apple Watch is the first wearable device and smartwatch. Apple Watch monitor health and fitness, track the user’s movement, heartrate and activity with built-in sensors that provide review and analysis of the data through Apple’s Health App. 

They have launched two new apps, Fitness and Workout. Fitness records general activity, steps and calories burned while Workout tracks activity for workout provided like personal trainer and give information about user’s heart rate and movement.

Big data is “datasets that helps companies to manage, store and analyze their database software”.

Big data are classified into four sources such as:

• Internal = Data that belongs to organization’s firewall. E.g. Data storage and archives
• External = Data that belongs to outsiders of organization’s firewall. E.g. public web
• Unstructured = Data that does not have a pre-defined data model or is not organized in a pre-defined manner
• Structured = Data that belongs in a fixed field within a record or file

Big data operates according to the principle of 3V as following:

• Velocity = The rate which data is generated and changed
• Variety = Number of different data sources and types
• Volume = Average quantity of data units per category

There are several ways to turn big data into value with several analytics to undertake by looking at the source that classified as:

• Media

It is the most popular source of big data as it provides information on customer preferences and trends. Companies may be able to obtain insight from their target audience, draw patterns and conclusions and elevate their decision making. 

Media includes social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and generic media such as images, audio, video that delivers quantitative and qualitative insights that companies can gain benefits from. It will help companies to execute audio, video and social media analytics from this source.

• Cloud

Cloud manages storage of structured and unstructured data that provides real-time information and on-demand insights. It is a very efficient and economical data source. Companies may implement text analytics where they can look through the data and extract meaning from various themes of data.

• Web

Public web is very accessible to people across the world where they can visit instantly. For example, Wikipedia delivers informational insights for free access to their readers. Companies will not need to develop big data to gain leverage on their businesses. 

• IoT

Internet of things produce data that can bring value of big data that are yielded from sensors that are connected to electronic devices. IoT data includes big data generated that comes from every device that releases data. 

• Databases

Nowadays, companies use a mix of traditional and modern databases to obtain relevant big data. The databases give insights that can be used to enhance business profits. Web, IoT and databases are extremely important sources for companies to conduct predictive analytics to look data from past and present and predict customer’s future behavior.

Internet of Things and big data are mutually dependent where both of them must co-exist hence companies can utilize it to gain profits and establish successful businesses. Companies must develop their own technologies and system to facilitate the operation of these tools that contribute to be a valuable source for the businesses and bring value to customers simultaneously. 

What do you think of IoT and big data? Do you find it useful for businesses? Or maybe you have other alternatives and solutions that you can suggest for the companies? Feel free to tell me all your thoughts in the comment section below. Thanks for reading my post and have a great day.

Kaplan defines mobile marketing as “any marketing activity conducted through a ubiquitous network which consumers are constantly connected using a personal mobile device”.

Mobile marketing provides customers with several features such as:

• Location search = Customers will be able to use mobile on the way. For example, Google Maps allow customers to find location that they want and give directions to the location.

• More local intent = Customers are capable to deploy mobile to find things nearby. Survey has proven that most people use smartphone to search for local information in a variety of places.

• Time sensitive = Mobile allows customers to discover things at once. FedEx launched an interactive advertising campaign that shows the time customers have to get their packages until Christmas. FedEx put GPS on their location listing to ease customers on finding the nearest store that includes contact information, address and click-to-call feature.

• Voice search = Siri is one of voice-based interfaces that enable voice-based search. Siri will listen to customers and send the request to Apple’s servers for translation. Apple will take the request and fulfill it.

• The device – capabilities = Mobile device has many capabilities that brands can utilize to promote their brands to customers. IKEA created a mobile app that allow customers to scan it with the pages to identify additional features such as putting certain products in your room by deploying input from the camera.

Mobile Marketing Applications 

There are 2 elements to distinguish between 4 types of mobile marketing applications:

1. The degree of consumer knowledge: Companies will be able to customize their messages to each user
2. The trigger of communication: Push communication that commenced by company and pull communication that commenced by customer.

The first group is low knowledge/push, companies communicate messages to huge amounts of mobile users. It is categorised as strangers considering the lack of firm’s recognition on which customers receive their message. The second group is low knowledge/pull, customers desire to receive information but wish not to reveal themselves. Company would not even know the clients that they are going to deal with, which also known as groupies.

The third group is high knowledge/push, companies recognize their customers and authorize to give information without consent, refers as victims. The last group is high knowledge/pull, customers willingly give consent to be contacted and provide personal information, refers as patrons.

Mobile Media Applications

Similar to mobile marketing, there are four types of social media applications, depends on whether the message delivers on specific location (location-sensitivity) and whether it is received instantly or with a delay (time-sensitivity).

1. Slow-timers

These group are not sensitive to time and space. It does not matter where consumers are or when the content is created. YouTube provides user-generated content where people can watch videos wherever they are anytime they want.

2. Space-timers

For people that belong to this group, location and time matters or important to them. WhatsApp launched Live Location feature where the users can share their location in real time with people from their contact list. It will be end-to-end encrypted along with timer to perform security function where users either terminate the location sharing or let the timer expire.

3. Quick-timers

People on this group are only concern about time. Instagram gives an update on their Instagram Stories feature where users will be able to upload any video or picture from their library more than 24 hours limit. Since Stories launched in 2016, it has beaten Snapchat by accumulating 200 million daily users as of September 2017. 

4. Space-locators

Members of this group are only value the importance of location. Zomato established as a food delivery start-up that provides user-reviews of restaurants, ratings, menus and food delivery options from partner restaurants in chosen cities. The reviews will give information about the ambience location, service, recommended dishes with photos as evidence. Customers can apply filter such as Wi-Fi, outdoor seating and buffet to ease the process to find the preferred place.

Successful Applications

Some of major brands that have been successful in creating mobile applications are:

1. Starbucks

Starbucks is the trend setter of mobile marketing. Their most popular feature would be store locator to help customers find nearest store based on their location. The app also enables customers to receive discounts and make payments. Customers can also customize their own drink and order them at the same time. 

2. Nike

Nike released Nike+ App that help users to plan, assess and follow their running routines. When the user runs, the app will gauge their running speed, distance coverage, calorie burn etc. 

Mobile Social Media Advice

Firm should be able to deploy social media effectively and entertain customers in the society with the following advices:

1. INTEGRATE your activities into users’ life to avoid being a nuisance

Firms should use social media to communicate with customers. If customers download your application, it can be seen as a sign of trust or customers willingness to establish friendship with your brand. 

2. INDIVIDUALIZE your activities to take into account of user preferences and interests

Mobile device must be personal not shared. Company are capable to have personalized communication with customers. 

3. INVOLVE the user through engaging conversations

The real-time response and geo-localization allow firms to increase the engaging conversations with current and prospective customers. Company may leverage on games to create a collaborative experience with company, user and their social network.

4. INITIATE the creation of user-generated content 

The effective strategy will not be completed without incorporating word of mouth communication with customers. Word of mouth marketing is truly a powerful campaign that contributes to company success.

Mobile marketing and mobile social media applications are very important for firms to incorporate in their business strategy. Firms will be able to persuade customers to use their products and services which provides two way benefits for firms and customers. Firms should learn from successful brands capabilities to utilize mobile applications effectively and pay attention to 4 I’s of social media to create successful mobile applications.

Now I want to turn it over to you. What do you think of the impact of mobile marketing for the business? Do you think there will be more people use social media to engage relationship with the brand and continue to invest their products and services? Let me know what you think in the comment section below. Thank you for reading and have a nice day.

Word of mouth marketing is a way of sharing information from person to person through verbal communication. Businesses have been using this strategy to influence their customers to spread positive words about their product, encourage and reach wider audience to purchase their products.

There are six principles of why people talk about the message and decide to spread the information. Known as principles of contagiousness it is abbreviated as STEPPS. 

The first one is social currency. For people to talk, the message should give ‘social currency’ or ‘bragging rights’. Jonah Berger pointed out three ways to make people look good by sharing their brand. 

A. Showing remarkability

When a brand capable to make innovation that is novel, interesting or worthy of attention, that product is remarkable. For example, Trunk Club provides service for people who hate shopping and have difficulties to pick up clothes by personally hand-picked clothes that match their unique personality and needs. Customers will only need to pay for what they like when they need it. Customers will be eager to share about the brand on social media. They feel remarkable by talking about it and give social currency.

B.  Leveraging game mechanics

Game mechanics can motivate customers to build sense of achievements. By providing levels, scores etc., customers will engage until they reach certain levels and compete with others to perform better. Doing well makes them good and they will share their progress on social media. Starbucks provide rewards by giving stars for customers who purchase their drinks using Starbucks cards. Starting from Welcome level, they need to collect stars to upgrade into Green and Gold levels. Each level provides more benefits than the previous levels. This evokes customers desire to drink more to gain more starts and get to the new level with more benefits.

C. Make people feel like insider

People desire things more when these are hard to find. Exclusivity works hand in hand with scarce where only some people have the authority to gain access to it. It is social currency where the privileged people wants to share on social media and the brand becomes well-known and wanted. When Facebook was initially launched, it was only accessible for Harvard students. More than half of Harvard undergraduates were Facebook users in first month. Facebook gained huge exposure as other students have to wait for Facebook to be available on their school.

The second principle is triggers. Brand must be associated with the trigger that customers encounter frequently where customers will remember and recall it at the top of their mind. Eventually, it will stimulate customers behavior to talk more about the brand. Nike’s slogan “Just Do It” was intended for everyone, not just sports enthusiasts. The slogan encouraged people to have can-do attitude and strive for determination and passion.  

The third principle is emotions. The message that the brand communicates will be able to arouse whether positive or negative emotions. Accordingly, customers will act based on the response. Customers will share it on social media and do impulse purchasing of the product. Moreover, it will establish loyal customer and provide new experience. Always launched #LikeAGirl campaign to portray all of amazing girls and women are doing in sports and the world. The campaign captured a lot of hearts and possible customers.

The fourth principle is public. People tend to follow others because they influence to behave on the same way as they do. It creates a belief when people consume it, it must be really good. Oreo launched two months campaign called Cookie vs Creme. Fans were asked to vote on their favorite sides. The campaign accumulated 53.000 Instagram followers within days. It worked because fans could vote publicly and their peers would know and they would tell their friends and will spread through word of mouth.

The fifth principle is practical value. People like to have valuable practical information before they make decisions and share it to help others who might get benefit from it. Periscope allows people to watch a live-stream of important occasions that happen in real time everywhere. Periscope brings value to utilize their platform for something greater and captivate wide range of behaviors. 

The last principle is stories. Stories are useful to share powerful messages that can be useful for life advice or tips. Brand must be able to envelop the message through riveting narratives to capture its audience. Sarah and Paige were born with only one arm. Their similar conditions were the common thing that brought them together and created a special bond. Despite that, they had never met in person. The story gained Skype’s attention and they offered the chance for the two girls to meet in real life. 

https://youtu.be/5nRKyQ11494

Social media influencers help brands to communicate the message to the target audience. There are three types of social media influencers that contributed to the success of social epidemic. 

The first one is connectors. Connectors is a social glue who spread the message. People that connect on social media are linked to very small number of people and the rest are linked to the world through this few. Facebook connects 500 million users around the world. To celebrate this milestone, Facebook launched Facebook Stories to capture people stories on how Facebook bring impact on their lives. 

The second one is mavens. Mavens are trustworthy source that collect and distribute information to help customers find the things that they want. The Girl Effect gather information for their followers and stimulate conversation. They encourage them to voice out their opinions just like what they do on daily basis. They advocate about how we must set an example where we need to get vocal about our cause if we want our followers to engage with your cause. 

The last one is salespersons. Salespersons are persuaders who motivates us to take actions. Jack Kosakowski from Act-On is a social selling advocate and social selling animal. According to him, social selling allows to leverage the sales and marketing data to create buyer experience which will be able to generate conversations. Conversations with buyers enable us to obtain the value and which is important for them. Consequently, customers get to enjoy the experience which eventually generate more opportunities and revenue to the brand.

To conclude, brand must identify the message that they want to communicate and how it persuades customers to purchase their products. Brand should adopt the six principles of contagiousness to help them implement this strategy. Moreover, brand should select the social media influencers to deliver the message towards their audience. 

It is important for brand to speak the message consistently and advocate opinions from the customers. Therefore, I would also like to encourage you to speak up and throw out some opinions, feedbacks or anything regarding to this post. I promise to give you the best answer and clarify any misunderstanding or doubts. Thank you. See you on the next post.

Social media users has been increasing significantly for the past few years. Consumers has been actively present in social media from Facebook and Twitter to Instagram and Youtube. Many people have their own reasons and purposes to get involved in these platforms. Some people utilise it to entertain themselves and acquire information while others use it as a place to express themselves and bring people together as a community.

Given the enormous impact of social media that resonates with people, companies have decided to incorporate social media as a part of their business strategy. Companies have pulled out business model where their venture can bring value to their customer.

Coca Cola has been successful in their business in their own way. Coca Cola came up with an idea of a campaign called “Open Happiness“. The theme of the campaign highlighted about the feeling of joy and spread the happiness with Coca Cola. “Open Happiness” campaign was merged with “Share a Coke” campaign which convey on how Coca Cola can bring happiness and joy when people share it at the same time.

Furthermore, the campaign employed promotion technique such as “Hug Machine” where the vending machine will give the people free Coke on whoever hug the machine. Coca Cola has brought experiential value to people by spreading happiness and joy to consumer.

Customer satisfaction has been the main focus of Apple when it comes to create products and services. Customer satisfaction drives viral word-of-mouth which has been the main cause of the success of Apple’s business model from time to time. Moreover, customer satisfaction will generate customer’s loyalty and value towards the brand. Customer are willing to invest and pay for it.

Consequently, Apple has reaped a revenue reaching $590B/yr and has a potential to triple their annual revenue with their existing products. Adding services, such as Apple Music, App Store, iTunes and iCloud storage enhance incremental value for customers and accumulate high revenue for Apple.

Apple has managed to bring fundamental value to customer. By concentrating on customer satisfaction and their capabilities to demonstrate through their well-functioned products and beautiful design, Apple has succeed to execute great performance and achieve great outcome.

Companies have been improving their business models to help them stay in the game and maintain their success. Guardian has shifted their business model by reaching and appealing their readers to contribute whether as subscribers, donors or members to build reader relationship and revenue.

As a result, Guardian has reaped 800.000 contributors (members, subscribers, donors) that has been making monthly payments under the membership scheme. These readers contribute more than the advertising itself.

Conversely, Netflix has acquired success by using social media, particularly Twitter to help them spread the word of mouth. Netflix is more favourable to produce viral content that gives sustainable advantage than traditional networks and on-demand providers such as Amazon Prime Video and Hulu.

New Netflix original shows accumulate over 30 percent more mentions on Twitter compare to new shows on network or cable television. Furthermore, Netflix is not assessed on viewership ratings which help the new shows to gather large audience. Thus, a mention in social media can enhance customer perception and accrue new subscribers to the platform.

It is true that some of the biggest companies in the world like Coca Cola and Apple have been successful in their business with their own strategy. However, it is inevitable that social media gives huge incentive for companies to promote their venture as it will be able to reach and appeal more target audience.

Ergo, companies need to incorporate social media into their business strategy hence company will have a big picture on what the target audience needs and build the business models accordingly. Companies should also discover what value that their business can deliver to their customer where customer will gain the benefit and experience at the same time.

As always, feel free to comment anything that might confuse you or if you have other perspective about some of the points indicated above. I will be very pleased to answer any of your doubts. Thanks for reading my blog. Have a great day.