Challenges that face the management of social media
The term ‘social media’ coves a wide array of online socialization platforms. It is broad in its uses and applications because the social media is used for socialization, informative activities, and business among other uses. The challenges that face the social media vary depending on the specific application of the social media in different contexts. The management of social media faces various challenges in that it consists of the users of the social media and the people behind the creation and maintenance of such social media. Individuals manage their personal accounts on the various platforms whereas the creators of the social media platforms manage the social sites to ensure user adherence to the rules that govern the use of such social media platforms. There are many instances where individuals hope to have more control over their social media accounts with custom rules that govern only their account. This essay discusses the challenges that face the management of social whereby it narrows down to e-commerce and social management by companies. It includes a reflective analysis of the challenges in line with the analysis of two scholarly articles on the same matter.
The management of social media falls onto the individuals that use the social media platforms for their private socialization activities, people and companies that use it for marketing purposes, social media owners and managers who use it for informative forums to handle clients and gather ideas for the advancement of their companies. Those are the people with user accounts in various social media platforms and need to control the content of their social media pages and accounts. The task of social media management also falls onto the people behind the running of the social media platforms. I shall narrow down to the challenges that face the management of social media in e-marketing.
Marketing managers operate business on various social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and others. The main problems of interest include the assurance of an authentic connection with the social media audiences, the creation of a social media marketing strategy (such as the selection of a local and global strategy), ensuring consistency and consistent production of good content, focusing on the most important content, and sharing social media content to a much larger audience. The sharing of the social media content goes hand-in-hand with the effective encouragement of people to share content posted on the social media.
The Use of Facebook as a Customer Engagement Tool by Newspapers in the UAE: An Exploratory Study
The Use of Facebook as a Customer Engagement Tool by Newspapers in the UAE: An Exploratory Study (Aaty & Koshy, 2015)
The article discusses the ever-increasing power of the use of social media in e-marketing. It discusses the use of social platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for the engagement of guests and customers through increased interactions and disseminates important information to the audiences. It settles on the impact of Facebook in the increase of ROI and brand awareness among guests and shares from the views. The article details the importance of the use of multiple platforms for the maximization of the spread of awareness as planned for to more people. There is focus on the use of Facebook among Newspaper companies to attract customer traffic into the purchase of newspapers and increase the engagement among the readers of the newspapers (Aaty & Koshy, 2015). According to the article, the millions of interactions that take place on the social media are the very sources of success for social media marketing. The use of social media for the communication of the company to guest and clients is inexpensive, fast, and convenient.
However, one gets to the question of whether it is all roses in the use of Facebook and other social media for marketing purposes. Aaty & Koshy (2015) sites the difficulty to track the Return on Investment as one of the problems of the use of e-marketing. I, feel that that is just a speck of a large chain of challenges that face the deed and management of the use of the social media for marketing purposes. Besides the difficulty in tracking the ROI, the honesty and genuine engagement of the audience is not guaranteed. Although Aaty & Koshy (2015) mention that Facebook provides an engagement analysis tool that monitors the behaviour of the people that interact with the site and content on the social media page.
However, it does not conclusively report on how to capture such audiences amidst the numerous posts by other companies and how to follow up without bugging them. It is not possible to manage audiences and customers that have not been earned because that means there shall be no customers at all. The attraction and maintenance of genuine social media engagement among the guests requires extra commitment on the part of the company.
Engagement comes by in the form of interactions through inquiries, complements, answers, and discussions. The people in charge of e-marketing must figure the best time to release a post because the best time is that which most people are online. During such times, more people visit such content because it shows up in their latest feeds and news which they are prompted to open there and then. That is unlike the old posts that require one to scroll much further down to see. The timing of the publication of the post is essential as is the timely and comprehensive responding to such posts (Nibusinessinfo, 2017).
Strategies for Overcoming Challenges in Social Media Management
The article discusses the advantages of the upgraded features of Facebook that allow for the monitoring and management of the activities of the guests of the various pages and the other people that interact with their posts through the company page and other guest shares. That way, it becomes possible to track the most frequent visitors, their commitment to share content, and their responses to the posted content.
Taking the challenge of the constant generation of good content into consideration, the monitoring of guest behaviours in relation to company posts is a good driver. The responses of the guests and their return to the page are of paramount importance when measuring the impact of various categories of posts (Peters, 2016). According to Nibusinessinfo (2017), the whole point of posting is to trigger the reaction of followers and guests. If followers that often react in various ways ignore the posts on a large scale there is need to determine the best course of action. Nibusinessinfo (2017) suggest that such an action could be in the form of upgraded posts into more interesting concepts on the same subjects. It could also be a complete turn into the right direction where the posts focus more on certain subjects and incorporate the concepts of the other subjects into the popular subjects in small ‘doses.’
Taking an example of a real estate company to illustrate the idea above, most people visit real estate pages to view property and get new information about properties and the section of the best property and agents. Many also visit such sites to view property offers and read the page articles to know more about property offers. In such a scenario, constantly posting about the internal operations of the company might lose a great deal of the audience that feels it has nothing to do with internal operations since they have no intention of engaging in the business (Paquette, 2013).
Taking my social media practices (which is a representative of the practices of all the people I know and most probably other people) into consideration in my perspective, the establishment of an identity in relation to the posts that are created is essential. Diverting from the known identity loses those that follow such a page for certain information. The email and newsletter updates begin to become irrelevant and members of the old audience cease to pay attention to all of them altogether.
Conclusion
The article opens my eyes to the advantages of the possibility to assess the target audience and determine its social media behaviour, age, location, gender, and interests. Maintaining posts that intrigue the audience is essential for the success of social media for marketing (Aaty & Koshy, 2015, p. 91). Aaty and Koshy (2015) explain that the best way to maintain guest engagement is through simple actions such as the online recognition of customers and guests, the posting of content that requires engagement such as contests, and offers amidst advertisements. Such are the actions that give the instant social the continuity that lacks in the traditional marketing avenues such as newspapers and magazines.
This article opens my eyes to the dynamics of the marketing and advertisement agencies in relation to technological advancement and the changes in consumer behaviour. The dynamics include advantages because of the ability to use multiple advertisement platforms that are cheap and easily accessible with instant response and reward system. The article lays out interaction, openness, conversations, and sharing as the main characteristics of social media. It also explains the importance of the recreation of marketing content by subscribers and other guests in the success of the marketing strategies. It, however, takes into consideration the fact that the content must be relevant and interesting enough to trigger sharing among the guests and post subscribers. It must also consider the best timing to be notices and cover relevant content in relation to the future and previous posts to trigger new interest. Advertisement agencies have had to revisit their advertisement strategies because of the rapid culture and technological changes that take place every day (Lee, 2014, p. 5).
It is for such reasons that the selection of the selection of the best method for local and global strategies gets tricky because of the vast information required to keep up. Local in-house teams are important in the making of such a decision and the determination of the need or lack of need to outsource for more effective international marketing strategies. Starbucks is one of the companies that has successfully managed to marry the local and international strategies to bring out a comprehensive whole social platform (Gilliland, 2016).
According to research, the creation and maintenance of authentic and interesting content is one of the hindrances to social media marketing. The encouragement of the creation of content by the guests and users is a smart way of getting through the innovative phases when the staff is short of new ideas. Taking my observations into consideration, the social media is all about relationships and assurance that there is an actual person behind the profile. When a relationship is established, the guests and customers are more likely to post their reviews on products and information offered in the social media (Bloomberg Vault, 2015). They are also more likely to give suggestion on the way forward in relation to various shortcomings exhibited by the companies in their operations. The Toyota Company is a good example in its encouragement of innovation ideas from the customers through the social media.
It is, however, important to consider the attitudes and culture of the masses in relation to the use of various social media platforms. People tend to be mean on twitter and more receptive to posts on Facebook. Since saving on costs is paramount, it is essential to strategize and maximize the use of certain platforms for purposes that shall yield the most success (Torr, 2014). Twitter could be maximized in the advertisement of offers and competitions. Although it also helps in addressing immediate issues and answering immediate inquiries, Facebook would be better when used as more of a customer care platform (Big Think, 2006).
According to Lee (2014), the advancing social media marketing strategies demand for knowledge in the cultural dynamics and most current technology to attract and maintain attention. Lee explains that most marketing agencies and companies face the challenge of the most impactful disciplines required for creative advertising. Those are the cultural and technical issues that come with the constantly upgrading and increasing social media platforms. The completion of tasks for the various processes takes more energy and time than the traditional methods. They also require both digital and traditional perspectives since the world is still in transition into going 100% digital. Internal organizational obstacles are also identifies as some of the factors that escalate the challenges that face the efficient and effective use off the social media for marketing (6).
The article by Lee (2014) also describes the importance of the maximization of user-generated content for advertisements and insight. Airbnb is one of the companies best known for their maximization of ecommerce and digital marketing using user-generated content. The success comes in the promotion of bloggers that discuss their content with the provision with more information and images (Davis, 2016). Backtracking posts also proves to be effective where the images posted by random users can be tracked too the source to determine the effectiveness of various marketing strategies. All images posted by and on the Airbnb website contain links embedded onto them to lead the observers to their sources if they feel intrigued by them (Davis, 2016).
The challenges experienced in the management of social media are complex and the approach that a company takes to solve them and still benefit from the use of the social media to increase brand awareness alongside increasing their profits. Lee (2014) covers the issue of cost in relation to the use and management of the social media for marketing and customer care. Although companies are willing to fully engage in the social media platforms and be up-to-date with the most recent technological changes and cultural modifications, the benefits must balance with the profits that come as a result.
It is for that reason that I believe the maximum benefits of the use of the social media for marketing is reaped from a selected few companies that manage to keep up with the technological and cultural race that comes with the use of the social media. It is the companies whose business is favoured by the use of social media where such use also brings the business money. It does not make sense to simply market using the online platforms and not offer opportunities to engage in the business through job interviews, and service and product purchases. Success is achieved if the business also upgrades to engage in full-fledged ecommerce that involves online business. According to the current culture, a person may be intrigues by content they come across online. However, the interest is likely to wade if a lot of time lapses between the time of the identification of the item and the purchasing of the same.
Conclusion
The future of online marketing is online business for all companies that use the social media for online marketing. The information to conduct business must also be available on the social media platforms to avoid getting ignored by parties that would have otherwise been interests. People browse with a lot on their mind and little attention spans. Unless a person was specifically interested in the product, re-directing guests to numerous other sites is discouraging and some prefer to look for alternatives or ignore the offers altogether. The articles are illuminating in their diverse views and specific reference to the current situation in the digital marketing field.
References
Aaty, A. A. S. A. & Koshy, S., 2015. The Use of Facebook as a Customer Engagement Tool by Newspapers in the UAE: An Exploratory Study. Journal of Media & Mass Communication, 1(2), pp. 90-96.
Big Think, 2006. How Toyota became the most innovative car company in the world. [Online] Available at: https://bigthink.com/endless-innovation/how-toyota-became-the-most-innovative-car-company-in-the-world [Accessed 11 4 2017].
Bloomberg Vault, 2015. Top challenges regulated firms face in managing social media. [Online] Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/blog/top-challenges-regulated-firms-face-in-managing-social-media/ [Accessed 4 6 2017].
Davis, B., 2016. 10 examples of great Airbnb marketing creative. [Online] Available at: https://econsultancy.com/blog/68225-10-examples-of-great-airbnb-marketing-creative/
Gilliland, N., 2016. The four biggest challenges facing social media strategists. [Online] Available at: https://econsultancy.com/blog/67913-the-four-biggest-challenges-facing-social-media-strategists/ [Accessed 4 6 2017].
Lee, P. Y., 2014. Social Media Challenges for Advertising Business and Creatives Management in the Social Media Era. International Journal of Research in Business Studies and Management, 1(1), pp. 1-11.
Nibusinessinfo, 2017. Social media best practice for business. [Online] Available at: https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/social-media-business-opportunities-and-challenges [Accessed 4 6 2017].
Paquette, H., 2013. Social Media as a Marketing Tool: A Literature Review. Major Papers by Master of Science Students, 2(1), pp. 1-26.
Peters, B., 2016. Solving the 10 Most Common Social Media Marketing Challenges. [Online] Available at: https://blog.bufferapp.com/solving-the-10-most-common-social-media-marketing-challenges [Accessed 4 6 2017].
Torr, D., 2014. 7 Social Media Challenges And Business Opportunities For Social Media Managers. [Online] Available at: https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-challenges-small-businesses-face/ [Accessed 4 6 2017].
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