A STUDY ON CREATION OF BRAND IMAGE THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA
– Mrs.Babita A. Kanojia
(MCom, Mphil)
Email id: [email protected]
Contact No. 9699240005
(Clara’s College of Commerce)
ABSTRACT
Erstwhile the brand image of the organization was created with the help of word of mouth. As the customer is the monarch of the market, same way now societal mass media has become the monarch in terms of brand formation for any and every organization starting from the twitch up to the established organization. The concept of Creating Brand Image via Social Media is highest of the schedule for many business officials today. Pronouncement makers, as well as mentors, try to recognize ways in which firms can make gainful use of solicitations such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, Second Life, and Twitter. Yet despite this interest, there seems to be very limited understanding of what the term “Brand Image” exactly means.
This paper intends to provide some explanations for the same. We begin by unfolding the concept of Brand Image. Based on this definition, we then provide a classification of Social Media which groups applications currently included under the generalized term into more specific categories by characteristic: blogs , social networking sites, and virtual social worlds.
Key Words: Brand Image, Social Media platform, virtual social world
INTRODUCTION
Brand image is the estimation of the clients about an explicit brand. It can define as a solitary bundle of relations within the consideration of aim customers. It implies what the brand soon stands for. It is a set of dogmas held about a specific brand. In short, it is nothing but the consumers’ intuition about the product. Brand image conveys easy-to-read value and not just an intelligent image. It is usually growth of contact and observation by people an external environment. It should highlight an organization’s current scenario and future plans. The main components of optimistic brand image are logo reflecting organization’s image, slogan-describing organization’s business in brief and brand identifier supporting the key values.
An image is formed about the brand on the basis of subjective that the consumers have about the brand. Volvo is associated with safety. Toyota is associated with consistency. There are advertisements also which play an important role in creation of the brand image.
These days it is the social that is creating an awareness amongst the customers. It is helping to induce the buyers to buy the product. It converts the customers into the consumers. The way appeals are shown in an advertisement and the way it is important to include appeals, same way that job is being done by the online media in terms of appeals shown with the help of virtual world. Though you cant touch it, but you can feel and that is the most important thing that is required in building the brand image of brand in a person’s mind.
There are certain times cognitive dissonance taking place in the minds of the consumers that means they are in two minds and do not know what to do, the online reviews about that things can help solve those problems. Brand images should be positive, solitary and swift. It can be supported using brand communications like publicizing, wrapping, word of mouth profile-raising, other promotional tools, etc.
The researcher have selected this topic to study the role of social media, its effect and the way it can change the mind of the consumers towards a brand with the help of online promotional techniques. The study is eloquent and based on primary and secondary sources of data collection.
OBJECTIVES
1. To study the role of social media and its imprint on branding
2. To study the encounters antagonized by the companies using social media today
3. To study the contrast between antiquated media vs contemporary media
PROBLEMS:
1. Through social media unconstructiveness is created
2. Trickeries are created through social media
3. Flawed word of mouth is practiced through the use of social media
HYPOTHESIS:
1. Social Media acts as a demolisher and a deleterious intermediate for the creation of brand
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media has grown a lot of esteem over the past few years and because of this reception, other outmoded Media have experienced fading in both business and fame. Palmer and Lewis (2009) argued that the vanilla media conduits have faced many encounters in recent times that have led to shutting with TV facing down turn in their profits levels. Palmer and Lewis are correlating the performance of these old-fashioned channels to the rise of social media in marketing and brand management. As a result of completion and threatening monetary environment, companies have constricted their finances especially promoting budgets which have shifted to operational channels. According to Forrester research study, found that companies (brands) are gradually fluctuating their publicity primacies to bring into line better with today’s buyers. Today’s buyers are techno- savvy and social media zealots.
In the last couple of ages, different kinds of social media interacting amenities have arose and currently there are uncountable social media stations that attach people to each other. The most important and popular social networking places that are widely used are; Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Flickr that can be used in the online marketing for creating brand awareness or just engaging with the customers.
Types of Social Media Involved In The Study
• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
Facebook
Facebook was hurled in the year 2004 and has 1.71 billion monthly active users (as of July 2016), of which 823 Million access Facebook through mobile devices. A typical Facebook user is projected to have at least 130 friends and is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events. There are more than 70 idioms available on the site. Its main use is to be found and uphold relations in work related situations, in radical associations or just among friends and families; Facebook has become the most persuasive tool for advertising today. Facebook is now a player of Google in accessible advertising medium and this new service has made it possible for companies such as Financial Times and ABC News to create self-motivated profitable illustrations or commercial.
Twitter
Twitter was shaped in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and hurled that similar year in July. Disparate Facebook where one can have networks to share different things, with twitter one has to get connected to the newest statistics on what they find interesting. One has to find the public stream that interests them and follow in the conversations. Each tweet is 140 characters in length. But now recently based on the demand the character size has increased. One can still follow the tweets regardless of whether they do not chirp at all, and there is no border as to how many chirps one can direct within a given day. Twitter can also share their evidence or newscast earlier to a large spectator online following the company, and from a strategic stand point, this has helped companies that uses. Twitter has aided boost brands, enrich purchaser association marketing and also improved straight sales by reaching out directly to the engaged audience on the podium.
YouTube
YouTube was shaped in February 2005 as an audiovisual sharing website on which users can upload, view and share videos as an informative and inspirational to others across the globe (The very first YouTube video was uploaded on 23 April 2005). This is the make and break of the brand image. As an entrepreneur this is the medium that mostly companies use to advertise the products. This is one of the cheapest medium of marketing.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn was started in the year 2002, but was legitimately hurled on May 5, 2003. Many specialists have joined LinkedIn in recent years to share information and insight in more than one million LinkedIn groups. The company operates the world’s largest expert network on the internet with more than 467 million members in over 195 countries. It is projected that more than 4 million companies have LinkedIn Company Pages (as of November 2016). In LinkedIn, companies have access to a wealth of data that are mostly user provided through their profile data i.e. company name, job title, size of the company and LinkedIn uses this information for advertising targeted to towards members. Companies wage some fees to promote their products and services to particular LinkedIn members or affiliation groups on LinkedIn.
Pinterest
Pinterest was flung on March 2010 as a web and mobile application company that operates a photo sharing website. Like Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest now let’s marketers access the data collected on its users. Expertise providers including Salesforce, Hootsuite, Spredfast, Percolate, Piqora, Curalate, and Tailwind are presently the only companies granted access to the data. By yielding contact to users’ data, Pinterest lets marketers inspect how people reply to products. If a product has a high amount of repines, this generally tells the producer of the product that it is well liked by many members of the Pinterest community. Now that Pinterest lets marketers access the data, companies can view user comments on the product to learn how people like or dislike it.
The Role of Social Media and Its Impact on Branding
The association between a brand and consumer has altered forcefully thanks to the influence of social media. By using social media, companies now can create plans after they examine the analytics to comprehend the aim consumer’s demands and likes/dislikes.
Consumers are outlay more time than ever using social media, as established in the Social Media Report recently published by Nielsen and NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey company. Building on this report, research by NM Incite helps uncover what impacts social media may have marketers trying to build their brands and connect with their audience more directly.
Social media theatres an important role in how consumers learn, research, and portion information about brands and goods. In fact, 60 percent of consumers researching products through multiple online sources learned about a specific brand or retailer through social networking sites. Active social media users are more likely to read product reviews online, and 3 out of 5 create their own reviews of products and services. Womenfolk are more likely than menfolk to tell others about products that they like (81% of females vs. 72% of males). Overall, consumer-generated reviews and product ratings are the most preferred sources of product information among social media users.
Research shows that social media is gradually a platform for consumers use to prompt their loyalty to their preferred brands and products, and many pursue to gain welfares from brands for helping indorse their products. Among those who share their brand experiences through social media, at least 41 percent say they do so to receive discounts. When investigating products, social media users are likely to trust the references of their friends and family most, and results from Nielsen’s Global Online Survey indicate that 2 out of 3 respondents said they were either highly or somewhat prejudiced by advertising with a social context.
Social Media also plays a key role in caring of the brands: 58 percent of social media users say they write product evaluations to guard others from evil experiences, and nearly 1 in 4 say they share their adverse experiences to “penalize companies”. Many customers also use social media to engross with brands on a customer provision level, with 42 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds admitting that they suppose client support within 12 hours of a grievance. On the flip side, another stimulating trend is the interest of consumers to act as diplomats and supporters for brands through social media. A mainstream of active social networkers (53%) follow brands. These brands are increasingly retaining their fans and followers to feast word-of-mouth recommendations about their products and services, and among consumers who write product reviews online, a majority say their share their experiences to “give gratitude for a job well done” by the company. Social media users are also absorbed in cooperating with their favorite brands, with 60 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds saying they want to give product improvement recommendations and another 64 percent who want to customize their products.
Connecting with the Audience
We have been seeing a enormous change in what it means to be definite on social media over the last few years. One challenge that marketers are fronting in this new era of social media marketing is concerning with audiences on an individual and personal level. Involving with your audience helps to civilize your brand and shape actual, dependable relationships.
Solution:
Screen all supplementary social media channels and respond to each remark in a consistent way. You can do this by inquiring questions, linking to other blog posts, providing insights, or offering help with a problematic thing. You may also consider creating and growing opportunity or group on Facebook, or even fashioning your own enthusiastic community site similar to – this gives you the prospect to engage with users as well as let them indulge their passions and connect with concurring people.
Coming up with consistently good content
Managing social media is tremendously laborious, and can become a full-time job. Which is why staying imaginative and innovative is one of the hard-hitting social media marketing dares to overcome. The social media manager specification seems to go on persistently: curate, fashion, schedule, monitor, respond, inform, and re-claim content across several different social profiles
Solution:
Continuously surf the net for inspiration and being original as possible.
Quantity over Quality
For some brands, the way to cut through all of the noise on social media is simply post more. While this tactic may work for some, for many it has the tendency to irritate followers.
Solution:
An outstanding way to contemplate about the quantity vs. excellence is to extravagance every piece of gratified—every tweet, every Facebook post, every CTA, every press outreach email—with the utmost care. People will logically follow your brand over time from relocation of great content, not stationing more content.
Promoting Content to a Large Social Audience
Promoting content, cooperating with brands and influencers, and apprehending audiences’ attention is one of the most problematic social media challenge
Solution:
• Vigorously seek out people that you know will benefit from it.
• Email your friends, family, and coworkers.
• Direct message influencers–in a genuine way–on social media.
• Join LinkedIn groups or online forums in your niche market.
• Syndicate your content (A complete guide from Neil Patel).
• Republish content to Medium.
Finding Ways to Encourage Sharing Brand’s Content
One thing that is chiefly stimulating on social media is discovering ways to avoid “creative rut.” A creative rut is when social media managers find a method that works a few times and then persistently go back to them over and over, even though the results may be even or deteriorating.
Solution:
Think like the person reading your content and make content interesting making your audience wanting to share.
KEYS TO CREATE A BRAND IMAGE THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA
• Classify Your Key Audiences.
It is important to identify the audience. The audiences can be identified in terms of demographics, psychographics and geographic. The target should be decided and based on that the advertisements should be flashed.
• Determine Serious Business Goals
The primary thing that is required is you need to know the objectives. Along with this you should even identify in the market that where you as a company and brand stand in the market.
• Define Your Brand Identity
Once you have determined your key audiences and critical business goals, you can start to build your brand in the market. Your brand should appeal to customers and should be a differentiator and should also offer product benefits unlike.
• Mature Key Messaging
After you’ve defined your brand image, document your key messages and align them with your audiences. You should define your brand in such a way with the help of advertisements that they create a place in the mind of the customers and also a key is an important part to it.
Data Collection:
The technique of data collection is primary and secondary. In primary data collection questionnaire was made and a survey was conducted. In secondary data collection online websites were referred, online journals were read and also certain case studies were read. The sample size was 150.
Analysis of Data:
The sample size is 150
The analysis of data collection is listed below:
1. It was observed that 7% is primary industry, 20% is secondary industry, 33% is service industry, 33% is transport industry and 7% is others.
2. It was observed that 57% said yes about personnel marketing team and 43% said no.
3. It was observed that from 0 to 1 year 20 were the respondents, 1 to 2 years 44, 2 to 3 years 40, 3 to 4 years 18, 4 to 5 years 15 and 5 years+ 13 were the respondents.
4. It was observed that 25 respondents use youtube, 38 use facebook, 28 use myspace, 16 use twitter, 35 use linkedin and 8 use others.
5. It was observed that 15% respondents use youtube, 27% use facebook, 14% use myspace, 22% use twitter, 17% use linkedin and 15% use others.
6. It was observed that 30 respondents use social media to advertise products/services, 15 respondents use to gain feedback from customers,26 respondents use to offer promotional items e.g. coupouns/gift vouchers, 24 respondents use for business to business purposes e.g. LinkedIn, 26 respondents use to increase brand awareness,15 respondents use to analyses the competition,14 respondents use for Others.
7. It was observed that 10 respondents don’t use any other type of media, 22 respondents use TV, 28 use Internet, 18 use mobile/SMS, 22 use email marketing, 14 use cinema, 9 use others.
8. It was observed that 26% respondents don’t know the usefulness of media, 27% find it kind of useful, 17% find it very useful, 7% find it useless, 23% don’t find it very useful.
9. According to the survey it was observed that 70 % of the respondents said that there is lack of control on the dispersion of information about the company and 30 % said there is control.
10. It was observed that 93% respondents said yes for the recommendation of social media and 7% said no.
11. It was observed that 95% respondents said yes for the usage of social media for the organization and 5 % said no.
12. It was observed that 100% respondents said yes that social media plays an important role in brand creation.
13. It was observed that 100% respondents said yes that brand image creates an influence on the customer.
The above survey indicates that brand image creates an influence on the customers and also social media plays an important role in creating a brand image of the organization.
CONCLUSION:
The study conducted by the researcher was on the topic brand image creation with the help of social media. As these days everyone is online so the brand image is also being created online. Before word of mouth was the most important thing so now this has changed into an online word of mouth wherein online the customers give reviews about your product and spread the message about your brand. It is an advertising tool which can make and break the brand image. It completely depends on you as an organization, how you portray yourself as an organization, how you make your audiences talk about you. It’s completely your part of the game.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
? As a replacement for of using other outdated mediums, this medium can be used to promote yourself as a brand. But at the same time when we express about creating awareness through this, overhaul has to be taken from the phishing sites and also dodges
? Through this dissection, levelling and speculating can be done and based on that the consciousness can be created
? CSR actions can be agreed on by creating your own company and brand page and based on that the elevations can be done
? Accessible ad campaigns and also online ad videos can be made with the help of YouTube and based on that as well admiration can be gained
Questionnaire
1. What industry does your organization operate in?
a. Primary Industry e.g. producers of raw materials (Mining, fishing, etc.)
b. Secondary Industry e.g. processors of raw materials (Manufacturing, building etc.)
c. Service
d. Transport
e. Other (please specify)
2. Does your organisation have a specific marketing person?
a. Yes
b. No
3. How long has your organisation been using social media for?
a. 0-1 Year
b. 1-2 years
c. 2-3 years
d. 3-4 years
e. 4-5 years
f. 5 years +
4. Which social media websites does your organisation use?
a. YouTube
b. Facebook
c. MySpace
d. Twitter
e. LinkedIn
f. Other (please specify)
5. Which is your preferred social media website?
g. Facebook
h. Twitter
i. LinkedIn
j. YouTube
k. MySpace
l. Other (please specify)
6. For what purpose/s does your organisation use social media? (Select as many choices as you like)
a. To advertise products/services
b. To gain feedback from customers
c. To offer promotional items e.g. coupouns/gift vouchers
d. For business to business purposes e.g. LinkedIn
e. To increase brand awareness
f. To analyses the competition
g. Other (please specify)
7. Please state which types of media you use, as well as social media (you may select as many choices as you like)
a. We don’t use any other type of media
b. TV
c. Radio
d. Internet
e. Mobile/ SMS
f. Email Marketing
g. Cinema
h. Other (please specify)
8. How useful do you think that social media has been for your company?
a. Very useful
b. Kind of useful
c. Don’t know
d. Not very useful
e. Useless
9. Do you feel that by using social media, you have a lack of control on the information that is dispersed about your company? (Please just write yes or no)
10. Would you recommend using social media to another organisation, as a tool for marketing a product/service?
a. Yes
b. No
11. Do you feel that your organisation should use social media more in its day-to-day operations?
a. Yes
b. No
12. Do you think that social media plays an important role in brand creation?
a.Yes
b. No
13. Is brand image playing an important role in creating an influence on the customer?
a. Yes
b. No
References:
? https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/N6WD9HD
? http://scholarshub.net/ijcms/vol8/issue3/Paper_14.pdf
? https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/105658/Jokinen_Tomi.pdf?sequence=1
? https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283835135_Determinants_of_Brand_Image_in_Social_Media
? https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-branding/
? https://www.digitalseoguide.com/social-media/role-of-social-media-in-building-the-brand-image/
? https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244677
