pensa media

People have taken to Social Media in a big way to express their sentiments about everything right from news to trends to brands. They are venting their opinions like never before. This ranges from complimenting brands, complaining about them to talking about failed brands/products. And these opinions are influencing their friends, family, colleagues and other people on their social networks. Social Media have thus become great sounding boards for users’ brand sentiments.

For marketers Social Media have become like potential minefields of information. Smart marketers are increasingly turning to Social Media such as Social Networking Sites, Blogs & Discussion Forums, to gauge market sentiment towards the brands they represent and & then address these on the very same platforms.

Conventional marketing is generally addressed to masses rather than individuals; often to those who marketers believe will result in the greatest immediate returns. Social Media Optimization, when executed smartly, engages one-on-one with all fans, users and followers.

As opposed to conventional media which are typically used by marketers for monologues where they “talk down” to customers in a bid to sell a product, Social Media allow marketers to build a rapport or a relationship with users through a two-way dialogue. Once these relationships have been established well through Social Media, marketers can look at leveraging them so as to swing opinion in favour of their brands whether through purchases or good reviews/word of mouth.

Interestingly, unlike any other marketing platform, Social Media can be used to garner feedback about products/brands that will help marketers to modify & re-launch their brands even.
They also help marketers get insights into their Target Groups – Who is interested in their product? What are they saying about it? What are the demographics, interests, lifestyles of their Target Audience like? Marketers can then use this information to address these Target Groups through alternate media platforms as well.
At Pensa Media, we have designed & handled SMO/SMM (Social Media Marketing)initiatives for a range of advertisers. We are especially able to leverage our experience & skills in content writing & CMS to propagate & distribute interesting content & buzz about brands on the internet.

The Fastest Growing Channel amongst All Online Marketing Media While SMO contributes to 3.2% of total online spends in US in 2010, in 2014 it is slated to overtake the contribution of e-mail marketing (currently 4.6%) & contribute 5.7% of online marketing spends. SMO spends in the US alone are set to grow to more than double their current levels by 2014.

PR firm Burson-Marsteller analyzed the social media presence of the Fortune Global 100 for its “Global Social Media Check-Up 2011” and found that 25% of companies worldwide are using all four major social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs. 84% are on at least one platform. Twitter, specifically, saw major growth compared to 2010, as 77% of companies around the world have Twitter accounts, up from 65% in 2009 As companies get beyond the idea that they “just have to be on” social media platforms, they are becoming more active on these sites. According to Burson-Marsteller, 67% of companies using Twitter use the “@” convention to directly mention other users, while 57% use retweets to repost a fellow user’s comment, an increase compared to 2010.

	On Facebook, companies are also posting more to their own walls than they did in 2010. During the week prior to the study, 84% of companies posted an update to their Facebook wall, up from 59% who had done the same a year earlier.