Definition Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing We take the approach that every organization Must deal with social media – regardless of whether social media used proactively in marketing or not. In addition, we do not see social media marketing as a pure means of customer interaction but as a cross-functional stakeholder management strategy.

Building on this, we suggest the following definition of the term:

Social media marketing generally understood to mean the targeted and market-oriented use of social media. A difference should be made between active and passive.

Proactive Social Media Marketing

Active means strategic and cross-functional management of social media to use them – alone or with other channels – to achieve corporate goals. Users have the opportunity to contribute their content and enter into dialogue with the company and other users.

Most of the Management tools are provided by monday.com where we can review through Asana vs. monday.com: which to choose in 2021.

Social Media Marketing (“Must have”)

In contrast, passive describes the use of third-party content from social media to achieve corporate goals without actively providing your content. Essentially, user and competitive activities are recorded, analyzed, processed, and used as sole or supplementary information for strategic and operational planning. (In this context, social media monitoring is also relevant.)

Fields of Action

Based on case studies, expert interviews (managers, consultants, and agencies), and literary analyses, we identified seven fields of action for : The Bamberg strategy model.

Social Media Monitoring

In our opinion, a definition of social media monitoring (1) must be organization-independent and not only refer to companies. Because also NGOs, politicians, etc., can (and should) carry out monitoring. It must also (2) be a cross-stakeholder. It is due just to the fact that, for example, Airbus “customers” (e.g., airline buyers) probably write very little about their experience with the aircraft. However, it can be end customers who complain or praise the plane. Or the public, current/former employees, etc. Furthermore, a definition of monitoring should not stop with the analysis, but also include the following steps – in this case, archiving, which also consists of the integration into knowledge management, etc.

The Complexity of Social Media Marketing – and What We are Working on:

As shown, we see social media marketing as a strategic and cross-stakeholder concept that brings numerous “invisible” processes, tasks, and challenges in addition to the externally visible activities. Here you will find an impression of the issues we are currently working on:

  • Elements of Strategic Social Media Marketing: Develop a strategic SMM framework based on international expert opinion (in help with the University of St. Gallen and Grand Valley State University, USA). See also the blog post Definition.
  • Advertising impact research 2.0 – e.g., with the AILIRA stage model of advertising impact research.
  • Social Media Guidelines: How should companies involve their employees, from temporary workers to CEOs, in their social media strategy? Is it allowed to tweet privately during working hours, and smartphones allowed? It just one of many questions in the area of ​​tension between “crisis avoidance” and “employees as brand ambassadors.”
  • Social media stakeholders: Which stakeholders can addressed together in a consistent social media strategy?
  • The use of  in medium-sized companies: an inventory. [PDF] (277.5 KB) (Patrick Müller, take value Online Marketing Consulting , Philipp Rauschnabel and Björn Evens)
  • Social media in “non-companies”: How can other organizations, for example, universities, actively use social media?
  • Operational optimization: how and when should companies post which content? We have published this study and another working paper on it and a German version here.
  • Conflicting goals: Some  goals compete. Generating traffic to the website and increasing interaction on social media platforms. What options are there to achieve both goals?