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Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a heavily debated topic in marketing circles today. Opponents claim that it does not work well as a marketing agent, cannot bring new customers to a company/brand, and may alienate customers if blatant advertising/marketing tactics are used. Proponents maintain that the relationships built, maintained, and grown and the brand pride developed outweigh the negative factors that can occur through using social media in marketing campaigns. This study asserts that both sides have legitimate arguments, but that, when used with care, SMM can be a valuable, or even necessary, tool for an organization.
INTRODUCTION
In 2012, Lay's Potato Chips began a very ambitious campaign: to use social networks to create a new flavor of potato chips. Using the title, "Do Us a Flavor", the company utilized Social Media Marketing, or SMM, to connect with millions of Americans to develop, describe, discuss, and vote on the new chip's flavor. The campaign was a success: beyond connecting with customers and empowering them to submit flavor ideas, Lay's received over 12 million entries and billions of mentions on social networks, proliferating the brand name beyond direct fans to current and potential customers (Exil, 2014). The company took an extra step into the social media realm in 2014 by encouraging entrants to market their own flavors via SMM - thus proliferating and advertising the brand and product to an even greater audience. (Exil, 2014; Weldon, 2014)
Lay's isn't the only company to utilize SMM, which can be defined as "the attempt to use social media to persuade consumers that one's company, products and/or services are worthwhile" (Ward, 2011), to market its products and services. Other companies that have successfully used SMM in their marketing campaigns include Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and the omnipresent Google (Brady, 2010; Daileda, 2013). With the success of these organizations utilizing social networks as part of their marketing strategy, other companies were quick to follow suit. However, many companies have found that marketing via social networks is not as easy as it first appears, and have either given up the SMM game or revised their marketing plans to reflect the failure of their SMM strategies. Today, numerous web pages and journal articles address the weaknesses and difficulties of the SMM system, and...