Social Media in Promotional Activity-Free-Samples for Students

Question: Discuss about the Social Media in Promotional activity of Starbucks. Answer: Introduction The chosen organisation is Starbucks Cafe and how effective these social channels are in receiving the good outcome that they get from societal review and feedback. This chapter analyses the social network of Starbucks cafes and how they use it according to their advantage. The Number of Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube, Twitter, Sound cloud followers is evidence to "how they are doing it right". Starbucks has many product offerings baristas. The literature review below argues about their social networking plans. There are many advantage and disadvantage of using social media to promote or for any communicative purpose. The interaction among the business and the customer s crucial for a business and that what is backed up by this media (Kaplan, and Haenlein 2010). They have made the coffee a socialising tool for people visiting their outlets and then providing WiFi is a cherry on top for people who are willing to spend time during the coffee break. Company's social channels ar e exquisite and have certain touch, look, feel, a tone is evident in their physical and online presence. Their increased sales and traffic in online websites and improved ranking on the search engines are evident to their harnessed opportunity from social websites (De Vries, Gensler and Leeflang 2012). According to their industry market research report, the social media outlook is enhanced by their feedback management and customer relationship management done through media channels. Objective of the research paper To analyse the effectiveness of the usage of social media on the revenue of the company The project objective is to explore on the rate of social media usage in the cafe industry for comparison with Starbucks. To analyse the efficiency of the media tools used by Starbucks in attracting more customer base To analyse the new plans put forward by the company for incorporating more options in their social campaign tools To analyse the customers of Starbucks in order to know the amount of satisfaction they derive from the customer complaint portal of the company To analyse the customer relationship status of the company depending on the social media performance To analyse the gap in the theory mentioned in the literature review of the paper Scope of the research topic Using social media as an effective marketing tool is reasonable. There is also an aspect of using the media for internal and external communication purposes. The business, which is very dependent on the outsourcing models and wants to expand their business offshore, the project, can be helpful for those entrepreneurs to seek the help of social media to communicate and for marketing purposes. The integration of web 2.0 technologies is also effective for those who want efficiency in supply-chain management. This research is also based on the efficiency of the media tools that have been used by Starbucks. The Twitter presence is very effective in using the customer engagement and always surprises their followers. The effectiveness of this research is also extensive in incorporating their media plans on their business model. Their organisation objective is to use the data they carefully collected from the front-end counter. However, there are some complaints regarding the use some of the private information of the customers, the overall satisfaction of the customer base negates the negative impact some of the customers gives. According to Gillin (2013) the relevant customer relationship theory that they apply in their everyday workplace, have enforced their ability to become the more effective in their social channel. There also a gap while analysing the arguments, which has been mentioned in the literature review. The comparative analysis is drawn in between the advantages and disadvantages of using social networks in cafes. Literature Review According to Burt, Kilduff and Tasselli (2013), several companies use social networks to promote their products online, to build long-term relationship with customers and to strengthen the brand image of the companies use Social networks. Use of social networks can be profitable for companies in the long run.But according to Malthouse et al. (2013), customers feel that their privacy is intruded as companies constantly use marketing and statistical tools like data mining software to constantly track personal information of customers like their phone number, shopping habits etc. One example is promotion of popular product of cafes online. The business launches a Facebook app to increase the popularity of its products. Users can learn about the product using the app. The social campaign of Starbucks was promoted with a tagline Make Someone Smile-Send them a light Note. The business was successful in this social media campaign to promote its new products. The company used Facebook and Twitter ads to target particular cities. The campaign was tailor-made and personalized and well-coordinated (Tsimonis and Dimitriadis 2014). Business including cafes also promotes the launch or return of its products online.For example, Starbucks celebrated the return of caf Pumpkin Latte in the United States. The caf is privileged to have millions of fans and during the promotional activity, fans could earn points using a Facebook app by solving a challenge every day or making a new creation every day. Users could also shout-out slogans of the caf in their city. The city, which was the winner of this campaign, was Chicago followed by Seattle (Jrvinen et al. 2012). Business as cafes promotes themselves on Twitter with a campaign called Tweet a coffee. The promotional campaign helps business like cafes in data mining as the business is able to accumulate huge data base of Twitter handles, credit card information and mobile phone id of users. Research firm Keyhole found out that during a campaign, twenty-seven thousand fans of Starbucks twitted a coffee, thirty-four percentage of the users also purchased multiple gift cards. It was estimated that cafe had access to databases of more than fifty-four thousand customers and $180,000 worth of coffee was sold during the promotional campaign (Tuten and Solomon 2014). Business promotes its brand in Instagram by posting pictures of people behind the scenes of the business. The business like cafe builds relationships with its huge customer base by reposting pictures of its fans holding coffee cups of cafes at different locations. This promotional campaign helps business to strengthen its brand image as fans of the business get an opportunity to see interesting behind the scenes pictures of the business. An integral part of the coffee culture business is to drink the coffee in a beautifully decorated cup. Business takes leverage of visually appealing social media platform Pinterest to post pictures of appealing and eye-catching pictures of its products. The business makes use of various Pinboards to post pictures of its products on Pinterest, like cafes post pictures of gadgets of coffee, tea rituals and comfortable spaces of their caf where one can relax and enjoy a soothing cup of coffee. Business applies the concept of Integrated Marketing Communication in their social networks as an online promotional tool strategy as business uses every social media platform to promote the caf. The business makes use of Youtube channel to promote itself, for example, cafes post several delicious recipes of coffee like the procedures to make Coffee Lemonade and Cold brew Mocha ice cubes. Business including cafes also maintains customer relationship management by proving information About our food where customers get to know the food they are consuming. The business uses social networks to build a good relationship and connect with their customers online. Business uses emotional tool to connect with the customers. Their marketing strategies in social networks do not push the products to the customers but connect with them emotionally so that customers feel privileged to purchase its products. A brand is about narrating a story, a brand is about connecting personally with customers. Every time customers see news from business like cafes in their newsfeed, they have the feeling to curl up in their beds on a lazy Sunday with a cup of coffee. This is the way business connects with their customers they sell comfort and happiness to them and not just a product. According to (Jrvinen et al. 2012), business makes use of social media campaigns to take active part in corporate social responsibility. Business uses social networks to do charitable campaigns like raising awareness of AIDS Business uses social networks to promote its products online in Australia with the help of its website. The business like cafes organizes campaigns like Free Fair trade Coffee Hours. Business uses the promotional campaign on its website to invite customers to visit certain stores in Australia on some particular date and time to enjoy a free product or service. The business also builds mobile App in Australia. Customers are allowed to locate stores, check menu, and re-load cards using this mobile app (Saravanakumar and SuganthaLakshmi 2012). The business makes use of Social network to develop a community of its customers and employees. The mission of business is to make difference in lives of people of its community of customers and employees. The motto of business is to bring together and connect people of its community and to ensure that the people of the countries where business has presence feel connected and act as a catalyst of change to make the world a better place to live in (Kaplan, and Haenlein 2010). The business also makes use of Social Networks to connect volunteers across the globe to the community. These volunteers are involved in several good causes that are beneficial to the human race. The business also nurtures the entrepreneurial spirit among young people by arranging Social Entrepreneurs Fund. This fund can be used by creative and innovative entrepreneurs to solve challenging problems of the community (Zaglia 2013). Business takes advantage of social networks to connect people from 75 countries where the business is present. Corporate social responsibility is a responsibility of the world-renowned businesses and they ensure to offer to its customers high quality and ethically sourced products. The business invests in education, training and development as a part of its CSR activities. Information about all these activities is available online (Weinberg and Pehlivan 2015). Business ensures that it takes active participation in environmental concerns. The business uses social network to provide customer information about how the business recycles its wastes to have a greener planet. The business like Starbucks uses social network to let members of its community know about how the company helps farmers have access to clean water and mitigates the impact of climate change on its farms (Durkin McGowan and McKeown 2013). The purpose of a business organization is not only to focus on its profit but also to contribute to the society. The triple bottom line of business is profit, people and planet. Business can use social networks to focus on the three bottom lines. Corporate social responsibility indirectly affects the profit of a business and therefore business can use social networks to focus on corporate social responsibility. Business can focus on environmental concerns, sustainability issues, social concerns like bringing more women in the workforce or reducing the wage gap between men and women using social networks. Professional Social networks can be used by business especially the human resource department to identify the talent gap in the organization and bridge the gap by recruiting people who will fit the organization. Also business can use social networks to earn profit from the bottom of pyramid. People on the bottom of the pyramid are people who belong to lower income groups. But busines s can provide services to these people and make profit. Business especially fast moving consumer goods company can make use of social networks to sell products like small economical packs of toothpaste, soaps, shampoo and can use social networks to raise awareness among people living in poor economic conditions. Business can make use of social networks to employ these people and can ensure that they can avail services of business at minimum cost. Thus, social networks or digital platform can be used by business not only to earn profit by promotional campaigns or connecting with customers and build relationship with them but social networks can be used by business for altruistic activities and corporate social responsibility. The business uses social networks to enable members of its community to have a volunteer match with the help of which volunteers can work on a common social cause that would suit their interest. Public conversation and civic engagement is encouraged among members of its community through social network perform (Neti 2012). The business manages dialogue between social media and customers using the 3-M framework-Megaphone, Magnet and Monitor framework. Megaphone represents communication from the firm to customers, The Magnet represents communication from customers to firms and Monitor represents interaction customer-to-customer interaction. Using this 3-M model the business analyzes the challenges faced posed by social media and comes up with solutions to mitigate the challenges (Okazaki and Taylor 2013). By the above examples, it can be depicted that the use of social media has many advantages that enable business to promote its new products online, to build a community among all its users worldwide, to promote entrepreneurial spirits among its members and to connect volunteers with its community. But according to Tiago and Verssimo (2014), the use of social media has many disadvantages as well. The main disadvantage of social media is that it is that usage of marketing tools on social networking sites is very time-consuming It often becomes very difficult for the business to manage the various social network platforms and the challenges imposed by them (Armstrong et al. 2015) Social networks are aimed at building long-term relationship with customers. There have to be people to manage the social networking sites by constantly updating product information, commenting on messages of public and answering their queries. Some customers may find the social network's effort of cafes to be intrusive to their privacy as companies constantly use data mining tools to track personal information of millions of customers online (Gensler et al. 2013). Customers who spread negative images about the business can misuse the social networking sites. Unhappy customers of business can post negative comments and videos about the business on Facebook and Twitter, which can be detrimental to the brand image of the business. There should be a team who involve themselves in managing such negative feedbacks and pacify the angry customers so that the brand image of the business stays intact and the perceived value of the customers about business is not harmed by any negative publicity (Laroche, Habibi and Richard 2013) Business is one of the most customer centric organizations assisting in customer engagement through social media challenge. They have used it to their advantage and have good results accordingly. Promoting its new product online and having feedbacks in the media has long run influence and helps in new customer acquisition. The usage of it is crucial as it may give some negative impacts and hampers the further promotion. However, one must learn its customer attitude as it helps in building brand equity, the business has certainly done it right (Jrvinen et al. 2012). There have been gaps in the literature which can be identified. A lot of information is provided in the literature review about many authors which signify that business like cafes uses the social networks online to promote their products and to build a personal relationship with customers but further research should be carried on to identify the disadvantages of using social networks in business. It is critical to analyze and understand the procedure by which business manages its social networking platform. The human resources involved in managing social networks, the tools used in social networks, the effective management of the negative feedback from customers and the cost incurred by the business in managing social networks should be analyzed further and a proposal should be developed on effective management of social networks site by cafes. It can be clearly depicted from the above literature review that business has huge social presence but further research should focus on the b usiness process involved in the effective management of these social networks, companys budget allocated to manage the social networks and the digital marketing strategy used to make optimal usage of each social media platform. Conclusion Therefore, from the above discussions and arguments, it can be concluded that the effective presence of Starbucks is also evidence to the effectiveness of Web 2.0. Re-evaluating the social presence and what is effective and how it can backfire, and other outcomes that Star bucks has to face while using the social channels can be helpful in building the social blocks that are useful for other investors and digital marketing team (De Vries, Gensler and Leeflang 2012). The significance of this research also lies in the outcome of the arguments that have been discussed in the literature review. References Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015.Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education. Burt, R.S., Kilduff, M. and Tasselli, S., 2013. Social network analysis: Foundations and frontiers on advantage.Annual review of psychology,64, pp.527-547. De Vries, L., Gensler, S. and Leeflang, P.S., 2012. Popularity of brand posts on brand fan pages: An investigation of the effects of social media marketing.Journal of interactive marketing,26(2), pp.83-91. Durkin, M., McGowan, P. and McKeown, N., 2013. 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