Social media refers to the websites and applications that were designed to allow people to communicate more quickly, and to share content efficiently and in real-time.(The Balance Small Business, 2018)
Being able to share photos of you, what are your opinions, thoughts has transformed the way we live, and the way businesses operate.
Social media platforms are a cheap, easy way to connect with your customers, to increase awareness of your brand, and most importantly the ultimate business goal, to boost your leads and sales.(Marketing Insider Group, 2018)
It is indeed a more connected world, businesses can reach more than 4 million people in only a few minutes by using social media platforms, it is a very strong communication tools, and ignoring social media may lead to the failure.
The latest guest speaker at our DICE (digital ,innovation,creativity,enterprise) lectures, talked of the importance of using social media platforms to market and reach the segment market, Her name is Nadiyah Almutairi.
Nadiyah just graduated last year with an honor degree from Dublin City University, she currently works as a marketing officer, and she the nature of her job focuses more on digital communications, at Virgin mobile.
Virgin mobile Arabia is a new type of telecom company in the kingdom, and their mission is to make mobile better, one mobile phone at a time. (Virginmobile.sa, 2018)
Nadiyah stated that Virgin mobile is indeed a new telecom company in the Arabian market, but they are capable of standing out in the tense competition of the telecom and mobile industry, As Virgin Mobile Arabia target aspects, they sell with the range of affordable prices, and they do have their own different business strategy, that is the core of the companies success.
The way Virgin Mobile Arabia operates and do business is a very strategic approach, they tend offer the highest flexibility possible in their work environment, as management is highly connected with their employees. As Nadiyah explained that she can easily go to the highest management and freely talk her mind, which shows how strong Virgin believes that communication is the key to success. Nadiyah mentioned that their marketing team is considered ‘small’, the reason for that is that they tend to outsource, working with other agencies on different projects, unlike other telecom companies.
as a Marketing Officer in a small Marketing team , Nadiyah is involved in many projects such like digital projects, and communication projects, unlike big companies in the industry, where they have a whole team for each task, for example; huge companies will have a whole department just for the social media content creation. Nadiyah believes that getting involved in many related projects will have a positive impact, giving you the chance to gain more skills in many related areas, and with the way they operate, in a very friendly work environment , it will lead employees to be more creative, unafraid to speak their mind , i could relate with what she mentioned about working in a small creative company, as i had a similar work experience, and it is true that when the highest management give their employees the chance to think outside of the box, marvelous results will show.
Furthermore, Nadiyah discussed how Virgin Mobile Arabia participate on social media platforms and how important it is for them to stay active and reach their target market. Virgin Mobile targets millennials; which are individuals who reached adulthood around the turn of the 21st century. (WhatIs.com, 2018). therefore, their tone of voice on social media platforms is so simple and straight forward. They make sure that they are active in more than one channels, as they also use social media platforms to advertise such like Anghami , snapchat, and Instagram. Her job is more focused on communication, communication the brand or any organizational goal through social media in a very easy to understand way, as many people will think that such posts are easy, Nadiyah states that easy posts like these are what keeps your account alive and your target market interested, as if your social media account is more likely to receive organic responds from real accounts if you posts puzzles and questions as a way of keeping the audience more engaged, the business social media account should not be only about the business it self, as you can create friendly interactions with your audience to keep them more loyal.(Social, 2018).
Nadiyah opened my eyes to another side of using social media platforms, as fun and easy it sounds, the truth is , using social media platforms have it own challenges that businesses need to work on, some of the challenges Nadiyah talked about were;
- People perception; as people will confuse Virgin Mobile with Virgin megastore, which will lead to a huge confusion and diffculties in their brand awarness strategy , as most costumers has already postioned Virgin brand to the mega store.
- Riyadh’s Chamber Of Commerce, as every social media have to be approved, as Virgin has faced many diffculties launching comeptitions to interact with their audience, as well as not being able to use many term such like ‘ we are the best’ as it may be considered fraud.
- Expensive social media advertising tool/conversion rate; at first you will think that social media is surely the cheaper advertising tool, however that is not 100% correct, as channels are becomeing more and more expensive, and can be booked all year , for example a trending hashtag on twitter can cost almost 90 thousand a day.
- and the most hard challenge is, the unexpected, social media never sleeps , you will never know when will the next trend be , and when should you be a part of it? as partipcating in trends is the cheap/ free advertisiment all busineses strive for, and the faster you partipcate, the better!
To sumup, expecting the unexpeted is the only way a business can successed in such a competitve industry, to keep innovating is the key to success. Nadiyah surely is an example of how a person can manage swimming instead of drawning with all the hard tasks she has , as she mentioned ‘ jump in, it’s not about making alot of mistakes, it is about making the RIGHT mistakes’.
Bibilography:
The Balance Small Business. (2018). Learn What Social Media Is and How to Use It to Grow Your Business. [online] Available at: https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-is-social-media-2890301 [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].
Marketing Insider Group. (2018). Why Social Media Is Important for Business Marketing | Marketing Insider Group. [online] Available at: https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/why-social-media-is-important-for-business-marketing/ [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].
Virginmobile.sa. (2018). About Virgin Mobile. [online] Available at: https://virginmobile.sa/en/about-virgin/ [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].
WhatIs.com. (2018). What is Millennials (Generation Y)? – Definition from WhatIs.com. [online] Available at: https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/millennials-millennial-generation [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].
Social. (2018). 8 Tips to Quickly Master Social Media For Businesses & Entrepreneurs. [online] Available at: https://blog.bufferapp.com/social-media-for-businesses [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].
Out of my box 