What is Social Marketing

Social marketing is a method that aims to change people’s daily behaviors, benefit them as individuals, and produce wide-ranging positive changes in the community or population. The concepts used in social marketing also come from social sciences. For example, traditional marketing and advertising.

Social marketing activities are those activities that use commercial marketing techniques for social interaction and influence the target audience to change their social behavior and benefit the community.

Whether it is the environment, public health, safety or community development, “marketing for good” is a way to achieve change.

Social Marketing versus Social Media Marketing

To understand social marketing, we need to understand the difference between social marketing and social media marketing. Although these concepts sometimes overlap, social marketing refers to the application of marketing principles and strategies to increase awareness of social issues, change people’s attitudes and behaviors, and make society better. On the other hand, social media marketing refers to the use of platforms.

Effective social marketing strategy

Following are the strategies of effective social marketing:

Goal: What behavior change are you looking for?

Audience: Who do we want to influence? In the example of anti-smoking advertisements, the audience might be smokers or people considering this behavior.

Programs: How is the message delivered? For example, anti-smoking messages can be spread through YouTube videos, banners and posters, or social media.

Clearly defined message: What are the benefits of the proposed behavior change? Why should people consider them?

What points Should be Considered in making Social Marketing Strategy

Target Audience:

In order to understand the target audience, including their needs, weaknesses and daily life, formative research is needed. For example, when creating anti-smoking advertisements, social marketers want to know why people start smoking, how often they smoke, how they benefit from smoking, and what barriers prevent them from quitting.

Developing Goals and Plans

When setting goals, marketers need to determine the specific types of behavior changes they want. Social marketers also need to set the criteria for determining the success of the campaign. The following goals can be pursued in the campaign to encourage local companies to protect the environment: Many companies pursue sustainable strategies, achieve measurable carbon dioxide emissions reductions, or commission several entrepreneurs to sign a statement supporting environmental sustainability.

Here target audience plays its role. If we know our target audience, we can do our media campaigns to achieve our goals that may include billboards or social media campaign.

Analyzing the success

Another important aspect is to determine the success of social marketing activities. Assess progress in relation to established goals and indicators.

Strategy of Social Marketing

Many resources, platforms, and tools can help you build a powerful social marketing campaign, including tools to help promote and learn more about your target audience.

Promotion and Advertising

Social Media is one of the most effective way of spreading message. Sometimes, given the sheer volume of social media activities, it may be difficult for marketers to see their information from their target audience.

For example, the most common thing is Facebook ads in this regard. Marketers can find it difficult to catch the attention of their targeted audience on Facebook through organic content sharing so Facebook Ads gives a control to marketers by spending some capital and catch the attention of their target audience.