Social Media Benefits to Companies

Introduction

The use of social networking has changed the way in which we communicate. Even in our personal lives, social media has become a major habit we have adopted whilst making use of the internet. In 2012 an estimated 1 in 5 people worldwide, were reported to be members of online social networks, an increase of 19% since 2011.1 (Emarketer.com, 2015)Researchers and analysts suggest that adapting social media in their various enterprises would in turn increase productivity and efficiency. (Manyika, Chui and Sarrazin, 2012)

This report examines Procter and gambles Old Spice brands and PizzaHut use of social media to create loyal followers and increase their brand awareness to drive sales and ultimately their benefits from the use of different social networking platforms. Both brands and company use popular social networking sites such as Twitter Facebook and YouTube and Instagram to communicate with their consumers.
Main Findings
Rebranding and Increased followership
Procter and Gambles Old launched their old spice campaign Smell Like a Man, Man during the Super Bowl ad in February 2010 by a leading ad agency Weiden and Kennedy, introducing the character and the use of social media supported the growth of their brand by tweeting a simple message to the old spice Facebook and twitter page. Within two days the social media team produced 180 video shout outs and exchanges with various celebrities including Ellen DeGeneres, Demi Moore and Christina Applegate. (Entrepreneur.com, 2010)
Old spice rebranded itself by changing the customer experience through the use of social media the ongoing social media campaign give aided to the success of old spice. The YouTube channel became the most viewed doubling from 65,000 to 150,000 subscribers and traffic to their website significantly increased which aided to double the company’s sales until they became the number 1 body wash brand for men in the United States (Lan et al., 2014)
The campaign not only helped draw in the more youthful gathering of people but was acknowledged through winning the Grand Prix for Film at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial, in June and July 2010 respectively. (Baboushkin 2015)
In 2011 pizza hut used social media to rebrand itself through their loyalty in a face book app that rewarded customers with a gift and another they could give away to friend. Pizza hut created virtual goods to physical through their engagement of customers. The feed a friend campaign saw a rise of 60k new members in three months. The campaign generated $2.4m in revenue as people were not just simply redeeming their prize but also adding to their order. The stream stories numbered 74660 in comments likes and other relevant posts generating a likelihood of at least 1.5 million impressions of free exposure off a campaign that cost only $55000. The campaign raised loyalty to the brand by 27% and significantly more people were ordering form PizzaHut (Warc.com, 2011)
Building relationships with consumers through social network
The founder of social networking sit dig.com, Kevin Rose, engaged with the old spice character via twitter that he was sick and the Weiden team produced a video in response to a tweet that went viral. In the first day alone, the Response Campaign generated 5.9 million YouTube views, more than Obama’s victory speech had achieved in its first 24 hours. (Norton, 2010)Old Spice secured key media endorsements and within the first three months following the campaign’s launch, they captured 76% of online buzz. (Fisher et al., n.d.)
Pizza hut social media presence has grown rapidly from 500k to 1 million Facebook likes in from 2013 to 2014 and an increase in 15000 twitter followers in two. The company have moved towards a priority to get customers using their social network platforms and have a say in what their business is doing. (Sponder and Mitchell, 2014)
Sales improvements:
The more potential customers a company can reach the higher the likelihood of increased revenue (Friedrichsen and Mühl-Benninghaus, 2013).Old Spice turned into the most obvious brand of antiperspirant/antiperspirant and body wash in both deals and volume, by May 2010 unit offers of Old Spice Red Zone body wash had expanded 60% from the earlier year., by July, deals had dramatically multiplied (Fisher et al., n.d.) see fig 1
Pizza Hut site and applications have grown 4,000% in the most recent three years creating great results from its investments in mobile commerce. Pizza Hut is first in sales and popularity among its competitors and also has the greatest social media following. (Evans, 2013)
Customer service improvements:
The use of social media has shown that it aids to reduce time of responding to customers and improved customer satisfaction companies can then monitor what is said about the brand over time but actively influence consumer generated brand stories to impact on their performance (Gensler et al., 2013) P&G’s use of social media demonstrates that the use of this channel not only enables the customers to talk to them bust also with each other (Mangold and Faulds, 2009) generating word of mouth, considered to be the best form of marketing as consumers trust it the most, its free and most likely to drive the sales of the company. (Whitler, 2014)
This two way channel has seen to be a more successful approach. Some of the tactics that can be used to generate communications include getting customers and employees to share their feedback, queries in relation to their products and services. Posting questions surveys competitions and videos to the company and for the general public and setting up a dedicated web page or tab to handle queries with a high responsive rate.
Old spice engaged with their fans by taking the further step of letting their fans influence their next video. This allowed them to have endless ideas on what next to produce for their next video. And by sending miniature TV commercials personalised to their consumers helped to keep their customers engaged (smith 2011)
Pizza hut have not fully made use of these channels to its full extent with 25166325 likes their engagement rate was considerably low at 76% pizza hut could ask more questions and respond to customers on their social media sites in real time and interact with other pages more (likeAlyzer, 2015)
Efficiency improvements:
Online networking has one of the best achieve efficiencies in light of the fact that these stages are more about engagement than they are promoting. Clients are utilizing online networking to connect with the organizations, brands, and individuals they find intriguing. (Van Doorn et al., 2010)
Without over spending, it is possible to target and reach the right people on the right platforms, would enable businesses to be successful in its ad campaigns by concentrating on expanding mores smaller focused online social media campaigns. (Chaturvedi, 2014)
Although the YouTube campaign generated significant increase in subscribers and interest in the old spice they further developed their campaign to engage with their consumers with an Instagram competition with the hashtag #imona and finish the statement with a thoughtful object they would be sitting on. This was an extremely simple way to generate social approval as Instagram is a simpler medium to upload pictures and short clips (Hansson, Wrangmo and Solberg Søilen, 2013)
Product innovation and demand creation
Social media allows consumers follow patterns, thus impacting on the purchasing choices of customers, representatives, and organizations. Social networking grants people build up a system of contacts and share their encounters and insights. Organizations can influence off this group by embracing being an insider (Prepletaný, 2013)
With Australia leading the world as the most prolific social networkers, Pizza hut developed an app on their Facebook. PizzaHut’s strategy rewarded customers who shared with friends and became the first Facebook edible gift (Warc.com, 2011) see fig 3
Analysis and Conclusion
Damage to Brand and Reputation
Revenue generated from social media campaigns is not easy, whilst a specific media may be interesting it doesn't necessarily increase revenues and benefits. Should the company later get an awful squeeze, then the effect of viral promoting practices could bounce back on them, which would need to be painstakingly taken care of. PizzaHut risked a slight damage to their brand image on their Southern California Facebook fan page when they used Facebook questions for a short poll. They left the option for anyone to add their own answers in a new checkbox which lead to a question containing profanity being uploaded onto their page. Attention to detail to know the content that will be uploaded to the site would avoid this situation in the future and once aware of any mistakes a quick fix is essential. (Barilone, 2011)
Despite the fact that it is troublesome for any organization to precisely anticipate all the dangers connected with their social media methodology and utilization, other disadvantages of social media includes.
• Disclosure of proprietary and/or confidential information
• Corporate identity theft
• Legal, regulatory and compliance violations

Conclusion social media practices permits you to contact potential clients without spending extreme measures of cash on promoting while staying in contact with current customers. Having a a strong presence on recognised platform suggests to individuals that your business is on the forefront or possibly has the capacity keep up with the evolving times. Utilizing social media to advance your business has numerous points of interest. A social networking method that fuses the key standards recorded above can bring about critical advantages from social networking utilization for organizations. (Cyr et al., 2007)
Organisations need to adopt systems that are eye catching, energize, and cause positive social communications in a manner that can be perceived by e-trade sites. Consumer information and behaviour online should be examined by the organizations’ advertising group, empower administration to settle on important choices. This is especially essential in a quick moving and focused business sector where inability to develop and interact will lose market share.

Reference List

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Appendices

Old Spice
Fig 1

Fig 2

PizzaHut
Fig 3