CHAPTER V: CONCLUSSION AND RECOMMENDATION
5.1 Conclusion
As a result of this study the development of social media marketing by PACs was documented. The
major findings are summarized and represented in this chapter.
Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are used by more than half of 23 respondents who participated in the
survey. Other tools are not widely used by the majority of the respondents. LinkedIn and Forums are the
least identified social media tools used by the surveyed venues.
Considering the study objectives, Facebook and Twitter were indicated by the respondents as the most
effective with an average score of 4 or more. Effectiveness of blogs for increasing web traffic and YouTube
for building a fan community was assessed with an average score higher than 3. Effectiveness of other
social media tools in achieving all objectives was assessed as low ranging from 1.5 to 3. Despite the fact
that MySpace is a social networking website widely used by people with an interest in music, it was not
assessed by the respondents as an effective tool in achieving any of the study marketing objectives. The
respondents did not assess any represented tool being effective in fundraising.
Increased brand awareness was indicated by the surveyed companies as the benefit best achieved with
the highest average score at 4. The respondents also rated as effective their achievements in building fan
communities and ticket selling through social media marketing.
The majority of the social media tools in the study are considered by the respondents as important in
regard to their marketing effort. The surveyed venues place high importance on Twitter, Facebook, Blog,
YouTube and Flicker with respect to the marketing effort of the open concert venues
Announcing upcoming events is viewed by the respondents as the most effective tactic leading to word-
of-mouth referrals. It was also indicated by the respondents that announcing online contests and posting
questions on the discussion boards to initiate discussions among fans tend to be effective in generating word
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of mouth. Posting video clips was assessed as the least effective in making a message viral. When asked
about the best tactics used to promote upcoming events in the open-ended question, the respondents
identified announcing upcoming events, contests and ticket sales on Twitter and Facebook as the most
effective.
Brand advocates identification is a part of social media strategy to initiate word-of-mouth referrals for
half of the 18 respondents. The majority of respondents identified their potential brand prospectors based on
their participation on the social media websites.
The budget spent on social media is relatively low when compared to expenditures for traditional
marketing. In a sample of 14 respondents, about 85% of them spend less than 10% of the marketing budget
on social media activities while 92% of the surveyed venues generate less than 20% of the total revenue
from social media marketing.
Despite rising popularity of LinkedIn, as
a business networking product, it was rated as the least
effective tool for the most objectives. However, literature illustrates many examples when LinkedIn
demonstrated successful results in fundraising for non-profit organizations. The survey results show that the
respondents did identified LinkedIn as a tool that contributed to fundraising. As literature suggests using
LinkedIn as a tool for communicating with professionals should not be ignored. Customers are not the only
group of the stakeholders the concert venues should communicate with. Communication with donation
organizations, art organizations and other professional organizations should be a part of the social media
strategy. As Facebook or MySpace are the social networking websites designed for casual communication,
LinkedIn was designed specifically for business professional networking which can be an effective tool to
reach a sizable number of organizations and generate funds to a venue.
It was no surprise that Facebook and Twitter would be used for marketing by the majority of the
respondents. This can be explained by the extremely high popularity of these websites among people and
their familiarity with basic techniques and principles in using the websites to communicate with others.
Many people who network with others use these two websites in everyday life; it is easy to adapt knowledge
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and skills for business purposes. It was expected that the high popularity of and familiarity with Facebook
and Twitter would possibly lead to producing the most valuable results in achieving marketing objectives
according to the assessment in the survey.
It was also surprising certain tools did not receive higher use or effectiveness responses. For example,
even if MySpace is a social networking website with an emphasis on music, the surveyed venues do not
place an importance on this website and do not assess it as an effective tool in achieving the stated goals. It
seems that MySpace is less popular. One of the indicators of declining popularity is the number of users of
MySpace compared to other popular social networking websites. While the number of fans on these two
websites was equal several years ago, today Facebook hosts more than 400 million users worldwide
compared to MySpace with 57 million (Facebook, 2010). It seems that that the respondents have a fan page
on MySpace because this website is related to music. However, the respondents are not willing to spend
their resources on MySpace due to its declining popularity among people.
Despite rising popularity of LinkedIn as
a business networking product, it was rated as the least
effective tool for the most objectives. However, the literature illustrates many examples when LinkedIn
demonstrated successful results in fundraising for non-profit organizations. The study results show that the
respondents did identify LinkedIn as a tool that contributed to fundraising. As literature suggests using
LinkedIn as a tool for communicating with professionals should not be ignored. Customers are not the only
group of the stakeholders the concert venues should communicate with. Communication with donation
organizations, art organizations and other professional organizations should be a part of the social media
strategy. Whereas Facebook or MySpace are the social networking websites designed for casual
communication, LinkedIn was designed specifically for business professional networking, and can be an
effective tool to reach a sizable number of organizations to generate funds to a venue.
Despite the fact that the respondents cited YouTube , Blogs and Flickr as important to their marketing
effort, these tools were not effective in achieving the listed marketing objectives with some exceptions.
There are several explanations possible to understand this discrepancy in marketing efforts and resulting
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achievements. Since these sites are relatively new to marketing professionals, the possible reason may be
the lack of knowledge and practical experience of the surveyed organizations to effectively monetize these
tools. Another possible reason may be the inability to effectively monitor outcomes of marketing endeavors
through these social media tools.
The study demonstrated low effectiveness using traditional methods for advertizing in a social media
landscape. Referring to the literature review, traditional forms of marketing gradually lose its credibility to
impact the purchase behavior of customers. Moreover, marketing experts stated that applying traditional
forms of advertising with social media do not lead to positive results. Commercial banners were assessed as
ineffective in stimulating word-of-mouth referrals, justifying resistance of customers to direct promotions
through social media websites.
The survey also indicated that the majority of companies in the study do not apply methods/tactics that
are recommended by the marketing experts in the literature. For example, social media marketing experts
consider identification of users with a high level of connectivity with their friends as the most effective
method to recognize potential brand prospectors. The study shows that the majority of respondents rely on
other methods to achieve this. Surveyed organizations used the number of friends as a major criterion to
identify brand advocates. Most active participant on the websites was another criterion used by the majority
of companies to identify brand advocates.
It was expected that the organizations in the study would demonstrate low expenditures on social media
compared to traditional marketing. This fact illustrates that social media is still viewed by many marketing
professionals as an inexpensive or free tool that can produce effective results. Social media marketing seems
to be as an inexpensive means to promote the services of a company. However, many marketing
professionals concluded that, to produce effective results, social media marketing requires significant
financial and human resource investments.
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