Social media marketing in the end into what kind of dilemma

In recent days, there has been a bit of controversy over social media marketing on Sina Weibo, which started with the questioning of individual behaviors that challenged some Weibo marketing companies (or media companies, public relations firms, and I'm confused) Spread to some corporate behavior, the final argument directly points to the entire social media marketing. I do not comment on this microblogging marketing company, this article just want to be here and colleagues in the marketing community to discuss the social media marketing as a whole involved some of the difficulties.

We can first review the traditional marketing.

Since its emergence, the marketing industry has been facing many complaints, doubts and even accusations from all sides. These voices are mainly reflected in the following aspects:

- Whether marketing is to meet the needs of consumers, or use, or even mislead the needs of consumers;

- For marketing purposes, directly or indirectly interfere with, affecting the psychology of consumers is legitimate?

- marketing to achieve business goals, you can ignore some of its negative social effects;

- Marketing chaos and deceit.

These issues are not all the problems facing marketing. In fact, even the answers to these most basic questions are complicated. Apart from the marketing itself, these basic issues involve many fields such as social, cultural, moral and moral, and even laws. I mentioned these issues, not to answer these questions, but to say that for emerging social media marketing, such doubts and complaints will remain or even more unmanageable. This is because in the context of the online community such as social media, in this self-media era, people will be more directly challenged, complaining will be more intense, and their criticism will be more acute. On the other hand, the social network is extremely Strong communication is itself a double-edged sword, which undoubtedly plays a huge role in promoting the correct dissemination of information. However, the spread of false information (such as rumors and prejudices) Negligence, may put its marketing activities facing unprecedented difficulties. We have entered a truly diverse age, which may be a new and greatest dilemma for social media marketing.

When people initially advocated social media marketing, they shouted that social media marketing is a great marketing revolution. The fundamental starting point is that people hate the above problems in traditional marketing. People originally thought that the power of netizens (consumers) in social networks could reverse these shortcomings in the traditional marketing process, expose the retrofit marketing tricks to get marketing back in the right direction, and consumers could reclaim what they once did in the traditional marketing game Biased toward business initiative. At the same time, companies also hope that social media marketing can save them from the vicious circle of traditional marketing cycle, so that both supply and demand to the community healthy communication and interaction Sunny Avenue, to a win-win situation. Now it seems that this idea is obviously a little whimsical.

From the consumer's point of view, in the social media, people are still immersed in the excitement of just getting the right to speak. Their critique of traditional marketing is fiercely sobering. The long-suppressed anger at the vicious marketing of the past is still in its infancy. People also There is no preparation for how to calmly communicate with the enterprises rationally, nor do we make friends with the enterprises and work together to create a win-win situation. In many cases, people still do not realize that every one of us is actually Can not escape being as a consumer, we do not yet know how to be a new consumer in an era of social networking, and we have not yet figured out how to work with such an open and accessible social media Together to create a harmonious coexistence, mutual benefit and win-win business and consumer relations.

From an enterprise perspective, even businesses have long been brain-broken by the words "ineffective marketing" and "out of control of the marketing process" (I have said in previous blogs on both issues) or have they swallowed up in the past How much "over-marketing" the consequences, but they still can not stop immediately and think about what is social media, what is the real social media marketing. The inertia of vicious marketing, coupled with ubiquitous pragmatism, short-term behavior, speculators, vicious competition, and even vested interests in the traditional value chain, and many more, almost destroyed many consumers in an instant , And even many companies themselves look forward to social media marketing.

As mentioned above, businesses and consumers are unprepared and are yet another real dilemma facing social media marketing. After the initial excitement, both businesses and consumers are in the midst of anxiety. The actions they take are inevitably impetuous. Various noises are filling the air in the community and starting to make people feel overwhelmed People quickly come to the conclusion of failure. Few people calm down to really think about how we should face this predicament, how exactly in such a predicament, looking for a reasonable future direction of development.

The evolution of social media has revolutionized the shopping decision-making process of consumers (previously analyzed in Bowen). Relying solely on the traditional marketing practices, but also increasingly difficult to obtain the trust of consumers. Well, what we need to do now is perhaps to find out in our predicament that a predecessor has not gone through a new path. This requires us to have an innovative passion, enough wisdom, and a little more patience. So, I think companies can think about how to break through the current dilemma from the following aspects:

1. We know that in the social media, to establish relations with consumers can not be wishful thinking, the relationship needs to be linked to maintain, then, we can find the relationship between consumers identify the link? Whether there is a more solid multiple ties it ?

2. After the establishment of a relationship, companies must communicate with each other to maintain close contact with consumers, but it is not feasible to communicate with all consumers, then what is the reasonable mode of communication? The result, how to pass to all other potential consumers?

3. Interaction is at the core of social media marketing, and interaction may determine the success or failure of social media marketing. So, at what level should an interaction start? Previous blog posts I mentioned about product, service, promotion, user experience, etc. At the level of design interaction, is there any other way to divide the interaction framework so that users are better motivated to participate and lead them to mature new consumers?

4. For the two sides of social media, what kind of mechanism should be established for reasonable and effective control, even if in some aspects beyond the control, should establish a set of emergency solutions?

Conclusion

Old or new marketing is still criticized in many ways, but any business, but also can not set aside marketing and find another way to find new solutions. We've all heard that Bill Gates was not the greatest programmer of the last century, but the most prominent marketing guru, and we've heard that Steve Jobs is at Apple, not just a talented designer, but more Is a marketing genius, Apple's success, its excellent marketing model (itunes and App Store) also excel. It can be said that every company that stands out from the current fierce competition in the market must have its own unique core competitiveness, such as Dell's supply chain, Apple's product design, Facebook's open platform, but they also have A common core competencies, that is, excellent marketing innovation. The emergence of social networks (media), to a certain extent, subvert the traditional marketing model, the model has changed, the environment has changed, the object has changed, this subversion both for businesses and consumers, may be passive, but I think no one wants to be forever passive. Perhaps in the future, the only way of social media marketing is that enterprises and consumers can finally understand that marketing is not a game of hide-and-seek between supply and demand. Marketing should be a process in which enterprises and consumers jointly participate in jointly creating value of products and services. Is a truly mutually beneficial and win-win process, and social media will provide an opportunity for this process.