reimagining Social Marketing
4P’s are on a verge of extinction and new dynamics of social media seems to take over the future of marketing. Social marketing is loosing its race in the era of social media marketing. It needs to evolve and it needs to do it now!
Social marketing is the concept derived in golden era of advertising, the 60’s. It is an approach used to develop activities aimed at changing or maintaining people’s behaviour for the benefit of individuals and society as a whole. It was widely used through the decades by governments and public sector to influence society and create a robust social policies, NGO’s used it for fund raising and promoting their causes and issues, brands used it to advertise and increase awareness. But in the last decade we have not heard many social marketing initiatives. So is social marketing dying? Not sure, but definitely there is an opportunity to revive the principals of this strong concept and integrate them in the new social media world.
Purpose is the new black
Today every organisation wants to jump on the purpose bandwagon and be a purposeful business. But for most purpose remains limited to the corporate social responsibility. Social ads definitely dominate the marketing budgets but how much impact do they really have? Marketers fail to realise the impact of social marketing will be far more and long-term than any of their current activities. Purpose is one of the main principals of social marketing and to be really purposeful, social marketing is one of the best tools.
Dash, a Manhattan-based start-up is working to enhance the consumer driver's experience with an interactive app and influence the ‘at the wheel behaviours’ of the drivers. Dash has signed a deal with the New York City Department of Transportation to help develop the municipal traffic strategy. Dash is truly purposeful brand that impacts behaviour change.
Social marketing is the concept derived in golden era of advertising, the 60’s. It is an approach used to develop activities aimed at changing or maintaining people’s behaviour for the benefit of individuals and society as a whole. It was widely used through the decades by governments and public sector to influence society and create a robust social policies, NGO’s used it for fund raising and promoting their causes and issues, brands used it to advertise and increase awareness. But in the last decade we have not heard many social marketing initiatives. So is social marketing dying? Not sure, but definitely there is an opportunity to revive the principals of this strong concept and integrate them in the new social media world.
Purpose is the new black
Today every organisation wants to jump on the purpose bandwagon and be a purposeful business. But for most purpose remains limited to the corporate social responsibility. Social ads definitely dominate the marketing budgets but how much impact do they really have? Marketers fail to realise the impact of social marketing will be far more and long-term than any of their current activities. Purpose is one of the main principals of social marketing and to be really purposeful, social marketing is one of the best tools.
Dash, a Manhattan-based start-up is working to enhance the consumer driver's experience with an interactive app and influence the ‘at the wheel behaviours’ of the drivers. Dash has signed a deal with the New York City Department of Transportation to help develop the municipal traffic strategy. Dash is truly purposeful brand that impacts behaviour change.
Behaviour change vs perception change
Nowadays everyone is focusing on changing the perception rather than changing the behaviour of people. The perception change facilitates the behaviour change, but the impact is less than the actual behaviour change. In social marketing, the activities are aimed at changing or maintaining people’s behaviour and not just their thoughts.
Technological innovation has helped some brands to bring about the positive behaviour change. For example Nike fuel band tracks the heath of people, this actually influences the dietary behaviours of people and makes them healthier. Connecting it with the social community makes it more competitive, which inturn makes it more impactful. The larger and social public heath motive is also satisfied. But we never refer Nike Fuel Band as an excellent social marketing example, do we?
Social is mutual
Social media has become a hygiene factor. But it has opened opportunities for creativity and innovation. Social marketing has always been above commercial marketing in terms of creativity and innovation. So the future of social marketing looks actually brighter than ever. There is an urgent need of repackaging this old wine called social marketing in a new bright attractive pack of social media. Social media will actually help social marketing to be social in real sense.
ALS Ice Bucket Challenge dominated the Internet in 2014. An excellent example of how social media was used for social marketing and influencing behaviour of millions. Its Impact was big, 2.4 million videos were uploaded on Facebook and ALS Association raised over $100 million.
The new age marketers should keep in mind that good and impactful social marketing campaign will actually leverage the prospects of their business or their cause. Social marketing is not dead, but in fact it has moved into a big uncharted and unexplored territory. A bit of investment and passion for social benefit will help them to explore this opportunity to gain a long-term competitive advantage and also be real purpose-driven in the process.