Social Media Marketing

There are many of factors that should be considered when choosing social media platforms, but the most immediate in my opinion include the number of active users, user demographic, and content type. First, without a high volume of users, the time it takes to post on a website in attempt to engage existing or prospective customers has a great possibility of being a waste. This is why using Facebook for social media advertising is so popular. In a single month, 1.28 billion users are active on Facebook which far surpasses the 540 million people to potentially be reached by the next most popular site, Google+. The next thing to consider is the demographic of said users. While teens and young adults are very active on social media, it appears that the older generation is more likely to actually engage in social media advertising. Because of this, posts might want to be geared more towards appealing to this age group since you want as many people as possible to interact with a post.
When building trying to strengthen your success with social media advertisement, pay attention to what is working for the competition. By having a good idea of what is successful for them, you might have a good idea what customers in your product type want, and this will save you some trial, and error and in turn save you time. In addition to this, you make sure to post at least weekly on whatever media you choose to ensure you have the attention of viewers consistently.  

Social networks, ranked by monthly active users:

1  Facebook: 1.28 billion

2  Google+: 540 million

3  Twitter: 255 million

4  Instagram: 200 million

5  LinkedIn: 187 million

6 Pinterest: 40 million

The kind of ads I would employ for these social media platforms would be short and engaging and most likely include an image. Short ads are more likely to be engaged with and so are ads with a question and/or an image. I think those kind of ads are the most effective and more likely to be clicked on.

Image: http://boalt.com/online-marketing/search-engine-marketingfirm/socialadvertising/

 Sources:

https://blog.bufferapp.com/how-to-choose-a-social-network

http://blog.wishpond.com/post/72672192941/social-media-marketing-which-platform-is-right-for

http://madlemmings.com/2014/02/24/social-media-platforms-business/

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/218160

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/11/the-top-10-benefits-of-social-media-marketing/#339cc20b2a4d

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/essential-elements-social-media-marketing-strategy/

Successful Email Marketing

Successful email marketing campaigns begin with establishing an email list. An intriguing subject line to grab the attention of the recipient is one of the most important parts of the email campaign. Without a compelling subject line, the email will most likely be deleted or ignored. The emails should be kept to the expectations of the recipient when signing up for the emails. If the recipient expects an email once a week and is instead sent an email daily or vice versa, the recipient will soon unsubscribe, (kissmetrics.com). A successful campaign also engages the interest of each individual recipient by personalizing the campaign to cater to the audience. By having more to offer than just a sales pitch, you’ll instead find yourself showing your audience the value of the content of your campaign to them personally in such a way that they’re going to utilize the offer to its fullest extent and continue to see the benefit of your marketing campaigns. Personalized emails and targeted product promotion should be used with email marketing to ensure the customer opens the email. Personal interest in the email and coupons for what the buyer actually wants are more likely to be opened than random junk emails that just get deleted. Social media marketing can also be included in the emails to try and reach across more mediums. I think response rates differ by industry depending on the audience they are targeting and the needs and wants of those individuals. Some of the ways to look at response rates are messages sent, messages delivered, hard and soft bounces, unsubscribes, messages opened, and click-throughs, (idealware.org). These are all important aspects of the email campaign and how successful it is, especially when taking into account the negative aspects such as unsubscribes, unopened messages, and bounced emails. I believe that email campaigning will continue to be relevant because adults use email more frequently than social media and other sources of campaigning and are more likely to see the campaigns.

http://www.idealware.org/articles/email_metrics.php

https://blog.kissmetrics.com/beginners-guide-email-marketing/

http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/03/31/email-subject-lines

http://www.copyblogger.com/37-email-marketing-tips/