Social Marketing
Social marketing is the methodical use of marketing together with other ideas and strategies to accomplish particular behavioural objectives for a social benefit.
For instance, this can entail urging individuals to wear seat belts, refrain from smoking in public spaces, or adhere to posted speed restrictions.
- Social media marketing is marketing that aims to improve society rather than just boost a company’s bottom line. It seeks to persuade an audience to alter their behaviour by bringing attention to a certain issue or cause via the use of conventional marketing strategies.
- Therefore, social marketing “sells” a lifestyle or habit that helps society rather than a commodity in order to bring about the desired transformation. The public welfare is the main priority at all times. Furthermore, social media marketing “competes” against negative ideas, attitudes, or behaviours rather than highlighting how a product is superior to rival offerings.
- It is standard practise to employ social marketing for causes like
- Safety and health, including:
- Anti-smoking
- Anti-drug
- encouraging physical activity and a balanced diet
- driving safely
- Safety at railroad stations
- environmental factors, such as
- Anti-deforestation
- Anti-littering
- Awareness of endangered species
- Social action, such as:
- Bringing attention to the difficulties faced by people of race, those with disabilities, etc., and motivating others to combat the systems that produce inequality
- Anti-bullying
- combating gender stereotypes
- These social media marketing efforts are started by who? Most social marketing efforts are managed by nonprofits and charitable groups. They are also operated by emergency services (police, fire, ambulance), government agencies, and coalitions for highway safety. However, social media marketing is still relevant for businesses. Sometimes, social media marketing campaigns for issues that commercial businesses care about are launched.
- While “money” is the main goal of commercial marketing, “social good” is the main objective of social marketing. This does not imply that commercial marketers cannot help advance social justice.
- Social media applications
- Social marketing plays a major role in the implementation of health promotion efforts, particularly in Kerala, and AIDS awareness programmes in India, where social workers constitute the primary workforce. For this specific role, the majority of social workers have professional training.
- campaigns against tobacco use
- campaigns against drugs
- campaigns against pollution
- campaigns for road safety
- campaigns against dowries
- Campaign for the Protection of Girls’ Child
- Strive to discourage the usage of plastic bags.
- eco-friendly advertising campaign
- Applying a customer-focused strategy, social marketing leverages the ideas and resources of commercial marketing to achieve social objectives like funding campaigns for non-governmental organisations or anti-smoking initiatives.
- Benefits of Social Media Promotion
- When utilised correctly, social media marketing, a new marketing technique, may be a huge advantage. Social media marketing may have enormous positive benefits on a company, but it is important to utilise it as effectively as possible.
- By leveraging the many social media platforms available, including blogs, social networking sites, picture and video sharing websites, and social bookmarking websites, social marketing enables companies and websites to become more well-known online.
- Social media marketing is an essential component of every marketing effort because of these six key benefits:
- encourages the use of goods that are valued by society.
- encourages individuals to live a healthy lifestyle and raises their awareness of health issues.
- It supports eco-friendly marketing campaigns.
- It aids in the eradication of social ills that harm society and standard of living.
- One of the least expensive forms of marketing is social media marketing.
- The fact that anybody can benefit from social marketing, even from home, is one of its finest features.
- What does social media marketing NOT entail?
- People often misunderstand the terms “social marketing” and “non-social marketing.” So, let’s dissect three forms of marketing that are NOT considered social media marketing before moving on.
- Marketing on Social Media
- Many individuals mistakenly believe that social media marketing—that is, marketing on social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook—and social marketing are synonymous. That’s not true, however. Social media is sometimes used to promote and create talk about social marketing initiatives. Nonetheless, the majority of social media marketing is focused on advertising a product or service. Wendy’s famous tweets and the influencer’s Fashion Nova Instagram promotion are by no means examples of social marketing!
- Donations for Oneself
- Publicizing a gift a corporation makes to a cause or charity is not considered social marketing since the firm also wants to improve its own image.
- promoting “green” or “tie-in” charitable goods
- Social marketing does not apply to a corporation that markets its own brand of environmentally friendly water bottles, hybrid vehicles, reusable lunchboxes, or other “green” items. Nor does the promotion of goods that are tied to charity donations (like TOMS) qualify. The sale of a product is the main goal in each of these cases. In contrast, social marketing focuses all of its attention on altering behaviour for the benefit of the general population.
- As an example, consider this:
- Social marketing does not include an advertisement that uses startling statistics about the amount of single-use water bottles that are thrown away annually to highlight the environmental benefits of Hydro Flask reusable bottles—a tactic the company uses to promote its own brand of bottles.
On the other hand, social marketing refers to a broad effort by an environmental group to encourage the use of reusable water bottles rather than a particular brand