Author: Pankaj Pipariya
It took aviation and automobile industry more than 60 years to gain user base of 5 crores and the same feat was achieved by Twitter in 2 years and Pokémon-go in only 19 days!!! Such is the incredible power of digitization and social media in recent times.
I often refer to the first chapter of the bible of marketing, the Principals of Marketing Management book of Mr. Philip Kotler, to distinguish between the selling concept and marketing concept. While, marketing is a logical way to build services and products in a sustainable manner, an excessive usage of it, in today’s era of social marketing and public relations (PR), has its own benefits and drawbacks.
Benefits:
1. The market assessment of basic need of end user, is the first step in marketing concept. It helps to connect with end user and build products and services from grounds up level and keep improving them.
2. The social marketing is an easiest way to reach masses and helps an immediate personal brand building of the person advocating it and associated services.
3. The public relation (PR) is a new buzz word in today’s scenario. Corporates invest significantly to buy media exposure, either in direct fee terms or indirect promotion and sponsorship. A PR initiative leaves a permanent footprint of a person and associated services on media.
4. Quoting Mr. Kotler again, for an AIDA principal (Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action), social marketing and PR are most efficient ways to nurture Awareness and Interest (AI) of product and services in the market. This enhances the TOM (Top of Mind) recall too in an effective manner. These 2 attributes of increasing awareness and market interest are foundation stone while building a new business or services from grounds up level.
5. A continuous feedback gathering is an important part in business. A social media marketing is an effective and efficient mechanism to gather market feedback and responses on new ideas and initiatives in a shortest possible time frame.
Drawbacks:
1. It’s highly addictive and sucks your productive work time, which could be used for other important activities. As we know, people get the best kick not from wine, but from power. A high media exposure makes oneself a poster person and hence the kick of power. To keep a check on this addiction, a time to time detox of media is highly recommended.
2. It exposes your business initiative and hence your competitive age could be diluted, and new initiatives stands exposed in market.
3. It is a huge risk on corporate integrity and commitment when boasted promises made on media platform are not full filled at ground level. This creates negative word of mouth publicity.
4. It creates alienation in team, when personal branding is tilted towards a person and other team member efforts are not appreciated and recognized in time.
5. It sometimes leads to a win-lose situation, wherein due to enhanced media exposure the personal brand building wins but at the cost of business which takes a hit due to lack of focused time and efforts.
Similar to the famous work life balance, a social media marketing and business performance is a delicate balance to be maintained on a continuous basis.
