What is Social Media Marketing?

     Social media has become a shared space for all of us, transcending the boundaries of our daily lives and breaking free from physical constraints. However, when we view the individuals within this social media as potential consumers, social media becomes a means to secure more marketing targets than any other channel. Social Media Marketing was born from this perspective.

    Chapter 1 of the textbook introduces the development process of social media and subsequently discusses the effectiveness and pros and cons of social media marketing. From a brand's perspective, social media is a marketing tool aimed at increasing brand awareness among social media users and thereby boosting profits. After reading this part, Duolingo came to mind as a good example of this. Duolingo has been conducting aggressive social media marketing focused on short-form content through its mascot ‘Duo’. The primary limitation of language learning application is user attrition. To address this problem, Duolingo has been consistently marketing on social media using Duo to encourage and remind users to continue learning.

Image Source: Duolingo Blog (left) (right)

    In addition, what I learned for the first time was about the metrics used to gauge the success of social media marketing. Although I am currently at ONU as an exchange student, I had never taken any marketing-related courses at my home university, so I had no knowledge of the criteria used to assess marketing success.

    However, after reading this chapter, I realize I actually want to measure these metrics myself. I do have an Instagram account where I upload my vlogs, but the metrics presented in the textbook seem too numerous, and I'm not quite sure how I can measure them. I had only reviewed the visitor statistics provided by Instagram, but it didn't really help increase my follower count. (Impressions, engagement through video, etc.)

    Furthermore, after reviewing social media marketing metrics, I also became curious about how to use this feedback to make marketing more successful. Besides the Instagram account mentioned earlier, I also worked on video production activities to increase brand awareness for a nonprofit organization while I was in my home university's marketing club. However, it was disappointing that the planning, filming, and editing time spent on the videos didn't yield high view counts or meaningful results. So, I want to learn how to leverage these metrics to drive successful marketing.