The Use of Social Media in Marketing - My Personal Observation

Ateneo Professor on Entrepreneurship

                                   

The current debacle of FB at Wall St woke me up to the reality of social media of marketing.  During the past year, our efforts to marekt were on:   blogging, SEO, twitter, flicker, FB, FB fan pages.  But our sales have not been stellar.

The wall st insider calls FB a mere advertising agency;  no real assets and no clear business model.

In the graduate school, marketing students are enamored on digital marketing.  On line business.  However, it does not work that way.



 
 A Digital Shit?


I think that social media is useful in creating awareness (advertising) in the digital world and among netizens.  However, there is the 70% of the market out there without computer or android cell phone.
Branding which was forgotten works.   Giving a pleasant customer experience works.  The old marketing still works for Philippine setting.  The old media still works and persist.

As it is, I can say that we spent too much time on social media with very little or at times 0 results.  Maybe 5 to 10% of marketing efforts and time should be spent on digital marketing,  Nothing more.

A world of chat;  compressed communication in l40 characters or less

It should not escape observation that Tweeter and FB depend and is effective for messages of  140 characters or less;  SMS is kinder with 160 characters.  What can you say with 90 characters?  Not much.  But it forces you to say much with less, and to be more persuasive and  attention catcher in composing your tweet or FB message.

FB is not even an advertising agency;   it is merely a link page.

Marketing Cluster Branding and Digital Marketing Forum Was Packed to the Quadrangle

The seminar conducted by the Marketing Cluster headed by Prof Eric Soriano of Ateneo Graduate School of Business last May 24, 2012 was well attended.   The seminar is about Branding by Jacqueline Alexis Tsng of Lexis (Singapore based) and Digital Marketing by Eduardo Mapa  of Media Contact.

The professors who were there Eric Soriano, Lulu Moguel,  Prof George Fong (it was his __nth birthday yesterday) Ibarle, Prof  Jorge Entrep, Danny Wong Barrinechea,  Of the Sentrep class, only CD Abugan and Voltaire Caballero were the guys I saw (were there others?) The Sentrep class would have benefited greatly from this forum

Branding:

Jacqueline, now 46 does a lot of worldwide consulting on branding.  She says 1/2 of the market for her is in Asia, and
Philippines is a growing market.  She has among her clients Jollibee, Belo group Goldilocks.  She was bought by Eric Soriano to the Belo group.

For many companies, the brand equity is more important than the company's tangible assets.

For her, branding is a promise of an experience for the customer for the product or service.  More than the communication, the more important for branding is the supporting behavior/structure, and implementation to deliver the promise.  Thus the business model canvass is very important in understanding what she is saying.  The key resources and activities  must
support the main value proposition.

Engaging the internal organization by way of communication, training, redesigning offices must be carefully planned and given attention, and part of the diligent execution.  Most organization neglect this part.




  Again she repeats the importance of the being unique, and being differentiated.  The market does not notice nor buy a me too product.

GDP

Growth -  Brand extension, differentiation of one brand vs another, sponsored brand

Direction -  local, regional, global

Protect -  brand must not die -  they die.  Companies must revive and spend on the brands, or recreate them to keep them alive

Digital Marketing

Going digital marketing is like taking a deep scuba dive.  First you must learn how to swim.  Aside from understanding techies.

Facts:  realities World population is 7billion, 2 billion are internet users,   l/3 of that is in Asia  PHL is the SMS  and social media capital of the world.

(I will add that digital marketing revenues is increasing-  it stands at $60+ billion and the new darling of Wall Street are companies engaged in DM and they are better than FB IPO;   as it is FB IPO bombed out)

Eds acronym: URE

Useful

Relevant

Entertaining.

Digital Marketing is about content -  unique content.  DM is about story telling that are URE




Notable Eds project are:  Close-up Kilig Factory, and Dove's "How Real Men Surprise their Dates"

All DM is a result of careful planning and diligent execution.