With the spread of smartphones, the number of SNS users has been increasing year by year over the past 10 years. Currently, the penetration rate of SNS in Japan is over 80%, and as people spend more time at home due to the spread of the new coronavirus infection that has continued since last year, the amount of time individuals spend on SNS per day has increased. It is said that This has also helped, and SNS marketing has become one of the more important activities in corporate sales promotion activities. This time, we will introduce the basics of SNS marketing, the benefits, characteristics of the four major SNS, and things to be careful about.
What is SNS marketing?
SNS marketing refers to marketing measures carried out using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It is one of the advertising media for companies, and the purpose is to disseminate information such as products and services through SNS, increase awareness and favorability, and improve brand power. In addition, through continuous communication with customers, we can increase the number of fans of a company even after purchase and increase trust, which leads to repeat purchases, and plays many roles such as branding and sales promotion.
Not only SNS marketing but also online marketing measures are fully equipped with detailed segmentation functions. It has the advantage of being able to obtain customer information, such as what age group customers are interested in. By operating SNS as official accounts, companies can learn about user attributes registered on SNS, customer age group, gender, recent interests, etc. Based on the data obtained, they can It can be used in marketing measures to attract more customers. Furthermore, on SNS, you can directly hear the real opinions of customers. By gathering information about a company, products, and services through the Internet, you can instantly learn the raw evaluations of customers, which is different from surveys such as market research.
Advantages of SNS marketing
Here are four benefits you can get from SNS marketing.
Information transmission speed is fast
One of the major benefits of SNS marketing is the speed of spread. The penetration rate of SNS in Japan is over 80%, and SNS stands out as a medium for easily obtaining information. The ownership rate of smartphones is also at a high level of over 90%, and users can obtain information anytime and anywhere using smartphones.
SNS also has a spreading function, allowing customers to easily share information they like with friends. You can share the content uploaded from the company’s official account as is, or you can share your personal impressions as well as word-of-mouth elements. Word of mouth tends to be preferred as honest feedback from customers rather than content from a company. Therefore, if good word of mouth is spread on SNS, there is a high possibility that the product or service will attract attention and increase the desire to purchase it.
With the ease of getting new information anytime and anywhere on your smartphone, and the ability to easily share information you like, SNS can be said to be one of the advertising media that will become increasingly necessary for companies in the future.
You can get a branding effect
Having an official company account can bring customers and companies closer together, depending on how it is operated, and can also create a branding effect for the company itself and its products and services.
Not only does it receive a large number of reviews and “likes” from users, but information is also disseminated by influencers who are trusted by users, which increases awareness and dramatically increases its value. It’s going up. By providing useful information on a company’s official account, you can establish it as a reliable account and serve as branding for your company.
If you use SNS marketing well, you can not only increase awareness but also influence the branding that increases the market value of the company itself.
Increased interest and trust
In marketing using SNS, it is possible to display information that matches the user’s hobbies and tastes as advertisements based on the user’s search history. By displaying advertisements that appear to be of high interest based on search history, it is possible to guide prospective customers who are likely to be relatively interested.
In addition, because it is easy to spread the word, people may learn about the existence of a company’s products or services through connected users, even if they were completely unaware of the company’s products or services. You can easily check the number of shares and likes for the product or service, so you can know not only the product information but also the reliability and attention level of the information.
In marketing using SNS, it is possible to know not only product information but also the reliability and attention of the information, so it is important to convey information that matches the user’s hobbies and tastes in a reliable manner.
Can reduce costs
Marketing using SNS mainly uses text and photos, so it can be operated at lower costs than TV commercials or print advertisements. Nowadays, SNS has become an indispensable part of daily life, and due to the speed of its spread, we can expect an increase in awareness.
It can be said that SNS has become an indispensable part of daily life, and as an advertising medium that can reduce costs and increase awareness, it has changed the form of marketing up until now.
However, depending on the SNS, it may be necessary to use short sentences that attract the customer’s interest, or images or videos that catch the customer’s attention, so it is necessary to use a different method than traditional advertising. is. Also, on SNS, where information flows quickly, old information gets buried, so it is important to post regularly. It is also important to create a system that allows you to post frequently in a format that matches the characteristics of SNS.
Characteristics of four typical SNS
Here we will introduce four SNS that are commonly used in Japan, including their characteristics.
Facebook
Facebook is a social media that started in 2004. In Japan, more than 26 million people use the service, and registration is basically based on a real name system. You can register your biography, gender, hobbies, etc., and add other users as your friends. There are also services that allow you to comment on posted content and receive automatic notifications when something is updated. You can flexibly change who can see your posts, as you can decide the scope of your posts with privacy settings such as “Public”, “Friends”, and “Only me”. And, if you use the “Messenger” app, you can communicate individually, and in addition to chatting, you can also make audio-only calls and video calls.
For business use, you can create a Facebook page for your business instead of a personal page for general users. You can post essential business information such as business hours and contact information, and you can easily connect with customers by adding friends and commenting on posts even if you are not a friend. Additionally, the number of companies using Facebook pages worldwide exceeds 90 million. The number of companies posting advertisements on Facebook exceeded 5 million in 2017, and there are many examples of business use on SNS, making it an SNS where SNS marketing is actively carried out.
Twitter
Twitter is a social networking service that started in 2006. Twitter has over 45 million users in Japan. It is characterized by the ability to communicate in short sentences as there is a character limit of 140 characters for posts, the ability to post without using your real name, and the ability to know “what is happening right now” in real time. It is said to be a highly viral SNS because it is easy to post and has a retweet function that allows you to easily share posts. Although there is an impression that most users of Twitter are young people, in reality, many users are in their 30s and older.
In addition, when using Twitter as a business account, there is no clear difference from a personal account. Even for business accounts, the rules for posting within 140 characters are the same. It is necessary to take advantage of the real-time nature of content and send short sentences about things that the target audience might be interested in. In addition, Twitter allows you to search by product/service, etc., so you can see how users are communicating about your company’s products/services. At that time, if someone is having trouble with your product or service, reply and try to solve the problem, or if someone has positive comments about your company’s products, express your gratitude. This allows you to communicate with users. This will help you improve your corporate image and get more people to know about your company. You can also create surveys using tweets, which can be used as a tool to easily connect with users and shorten the distance with your customers.
Instagram
Instagram is a social networking service that started in 2010 and has over 33 million users in Japan. A feature of Instagram is that it mainly posts photos and videos.
It is a SNS that is compatible with businesses and industries that can be used for photogenic purposes such as the apparel industry, tourism industry, and restaurants. For business use, you will need to create an account and then switch to a “Pro Account”. By selecting the category that applies to your business, you can complete the acquisition of an Instagram business account. After getting a business account, you can also take advantage of the free marketing plans provided by Instagram. The feature is that you can post photos and videos that catch the attention of users, so by creating content with a consistent design and atmosphere, you can improve your company’s branding power.
LINE
In Japan, it is a mobile messenger application that started in 2011. LINE has approximately 88 million users in Japan and is famous as the SNS used by the most users. The gender breakdown of users is almost equal between men and women, and users range in age from teens to those in their 60s.
Companies can create a LINE official account and use it for business purposes. A common way to use it is to have customers register the official LINE account you created, and use the chat function to send information about recommended products and sales to customers. LINE, which has the most users, is said to be a service that can bring companies and users closer together.
Things to keep in mind when using SNS marketing
1. Both good and bad information spreads quickly.
The disadvantage of SNS marketing is that bad information spreads quickly when an unexpected scandal occurs. It is possible that an information source such as a company makes a mistake by disseminating incorrect information, but it is also quite possible that a bad reputation spreads due to a misunderstanding by a user who is a customer.
When this kind of situation occurs, there is a possibility that trust in not only the products and services but also the company will decline. This can lead to a sense of distrust in the information that has been disseminated, and it is possible that all the trust that has been built up over time can be lost in an instant. Furthermore, once information is posted on the Internet, it is difficult to delete it, and this problem may occur in the long term.
2. It is not easy to correct it
<br/>As I mentioned earlier, if information that gives a negative impression to a company is spread, it is not easy to correct it. Once information has been disseminated, it cannot be deleted, and the data history remains. Additionally, if all users spread the information, it is possible that the information will be posted on personal SNS for a long period of time.
Although the speed of information transmission is an advantage, it is also good to be aware of the disadvantages that come with it.
summary
SNS has become an indispensable part of our daily lives, and many companies are conducting SNS marketing using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Each SNS has different characteristics and strengths, so if you are considering SNS marketing, it is a good idea to consider which SNS is most effective for your company’s services and use it. Also, the fact that information is transmitted quickly can be both an advantage and a disadvantage, so it is important to decide on firm rules before transmitting information when deciding how to develop SNS marketing.