Tag: social media marketing campaigns

Social media marketing campaigns aren’t ready for negative responses

A recent survey has shown that less than half of marketers know how to handle unwanted attention.

According to the results of recent research conducted by eMarketer, over 88 percent of all businesses are using social media marketing as of this year, and yet the majority of them are still struggling to be able to properly use this channel and measure their campaign successes.

Moreover, almost half of those marketers don’t know how to handle negative posts.

According to Social Media Marketing University (SMMU) a training firm for the use of this channel, one in four marketers do not have a plan for handling negative posts against them, but they are trying to develop one. Nearly that many, again, have absolutely no plan for dealing with negative social media attention and have no intention of trying to create one.

That said, despite the lack of negative social media marketing plan, the majority will still respond.

social media marketing - confused marketersSMMU’s stats showed that even though more than half of marketers don’t have a set strategy for dealing with negative posts in an effective way, the majority will respond to it. Moreover, many will create their response within an hour of the appearance of the negative post, in the first place. Another 52 percent said that they will respond within the first twenty four hours following the negative posting. Only five of all of the respondents to the survey said that they either hardly ever, or never, respond to negative attention over social media.

Among the respondents, Walmart was one that had previously taken a rather passive strategy when t comes to what its critics are posting over Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and so on. That said, it has since changed its tune. In the past, it simply used these channels as a fast, easy, and affordable way to help to create a push for its messages. However, this direction changed considerably last year as it began to provide rapid responses to negative posts, with a special effort to keep up positive posting and by providing information to correct misunderstandings.

This is a common evolution in social media marketing strategies as companies slowly begin to understand the way in which they can not only share their news but also interact and engage with consumers.

Social media marketing ads are now on Instagram

It hardly comes as a surprise, but the time for using this network without advertising has now passed.

Instagram has now officially changed its social media marketing strategy as sponsored advertising is now being delivered to its users in the United States, eliminating the “preview” time in which user feeds were free of ads.

Sponsored photos will become a regular part of this Facebook owned network’s feeds.

Among the first social media marketing campaigns that will be viewed as sponsored ads on Instagram for U.S. consumers will be courtesy of Michael Kors, the fashion brand. The ad will feature one of the watches from that company’s collection of Timeless pieces. When this first ad is posted on the site, it will mark the close of the “preview” period on the site that was designed to help the network’s approximately 150 million active users to become accustomed to the idea of seeing images and video ads within their feeds that had previously been free of any advertising at all.

Social Media Marketing - Instagram AdsThis has become what is appearing to be a social media marketing trend that is closing in on universal.

American users of Instagram will see the Michael Kors image regardless of whether or not they are following the brand on their accounts. This ad will include a sponsored label to identify it as a placement that has been paid for by the brand. Viewers will then be able to choose to hide it, leave it as it is, or even provide feedback if they don’t appreciate the content of that ad or any others that will be displayed in the future. The hope is to help to integrate the social media marketing into the feeds without taking away from the user experience.

Social media marketing with ads in feeds has not been present on Instagram throughout its entire three year lifespan, so far. However, when the service sold to Facebook, last year, for $1 billion, it had intentions to offer magazine-quality ads that it hoped its viewers would like. This appears to be the first visible phase in that new effort to further monetize the network.