Page 25 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

FIGURE 1-1:
Facebook is just
one example,
albeit the largest,
of the many
media platforms.

Learning about the Roles People Play

To look at the framework of social media marketing, we need to look at the differ-
ent roles played by those engaged in social media. They are as follows:

» Marketers: They publish and share content online to achieve an organiza-
tion’s marketing and business needs. Today’s marketer looks nothing like the
marketers of the twentieth century. Customers now own the brand conversa-
tion. The opportunity to interrupt and annoy those customers has dwindled.
Customers now meet businesses on their own terms. In the following section,
we discuss the new role that marketers have to play.
» Influencers: Several types of influencers contribute to the decisions custom-
ers make. They may be everyday people who influence the consumer as he
makes a purchasing decision. Depending on the decision, the social influenc-
ers may be a wife (or husband), friends, peers at work, or even someone the
consumer has never even met in real life. Simply put, the people who
influence a brand affinity and purchasing decision are the social influencers.
They may exert this influence directly by rating products and commenting or
by publishing opinions and participating in conversations across the web.
Anyone can be a social influencer, influencing someone else’s brand affinity

CHAPTER 1 Understanding Social Media Marketing 9