- There are various objectives for a company having a social media but in general they can be listed as below.
Creating awareness: one of the primary functions of social media is content sharing. When a message is shared widely within a relatively short period of time, it has gone viral and this leads to a rapid increase in awareness of both the message and the message’s creator.
Gaining consideration: Consumers are increasingly turning to social media for product and service recommendations. This can have implications for monitoring social media for problems that a company’s products or services can solve.
Stimulating trial: Typically, sales promotions are used to stimulate trial of products and services. Common forms of online sales promotion include printable coupons, discount codes, contests and games.
Encouraging repurchase: This method tries to retain existing customers and encourage repurchase through incentive schemes, which are focused on persuading customers not to switch to competitors. For example, companies can give a discount on a repurchase of the same product. Another method is the issue of ‘stamps’ that accumulated on personal web account could be exchanged for another good or service. For example, Hotels.com provides their customers a free hotel room for every 10 hotel rooms they book through them.
Improving customer satisfaction: The company can enhance the customer satisfaction by providing product and service support via social media. For example, software developers often receive and reply to requests for technical support on Facebook or Twitter. When it comes to dissatisfaction, customers can contact the company directly via social media. If the company deals with such complains promptly and effectively, dissatisfied customers will be less likely to communicate their dissatisfaction to others. Furthermore, by monitoring social media for posts from recent customers, companies can reassure these customers that they made a good choice and thereby reduce their cognitive dissonance.
Building brand relationship: Brand relationships develop because of positive repeat interactions between brand and customer. Companies can stimulate interaction with customers through posting relevant content, like news, articles, photos, videos and games.
Building brand communities: Here the customers not only interact with the brand but also with one another through e.g. discussion forums. Brand communities may be organized by the company, that owns brand, or it may be formed autonomously. Brand communities can serve as resource for idea generation (e.g. through crowd-sourcing) and marketing research.
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