Ten years ago the phrase “social networking” was obsolete but now it has consumed many of our lives.  Social networking covers a host of different tools that allow one to broadcast their life to the world, or just their close friends.  There lies the beauty of social media, it allows people to connect with others in ways that they had not before through outlets that best fit their life.  With the overwhelming presence of social media in the modern day world, marketers for all types of organizations have been able to change their marketing strategies to utilize these new outlets.  With the information gathered about ones life from the social media outlets they use, marketing plans are now tailored to individuals thus affording consumers a more personal relationship with many of their favorite organizations while introducing them to new organizations as well.

Marketing can be summarized as “those activities which occur at the interface between the organization and its customers,” with the end result being, “that customers will conduct exchanges with the marketer’s organization, rather than with the other” (Blythe 2).  While the concept of marketing remains the same for organizations of many different types, the focus may be different for an arts based organization or an organization that is involved in cultural productions.  Marketing for the arts is defined as “an integrated management process which sees mutually satisfying exchange relationships with customers as the route to achieving organizational and artistic objectives” (Hill 1).

An arts or culture based organization doesn’t simply want consumers to buy their product, they want consumers to have an educational, and more importantly, emotional experience with their organization.  The arts are meant to move people to think in new and different ways, which in turn affects the ways that their events and companies must be marketed.  Because of the low cost of social media and the large amount of people that they reach, social media outlets have become an effective way for arts marketers to reach potential audiences.

Facebook, Twitter, and personal blogs have become part of most people’s daily routine.  When one gets home from work or school, or often during work or school, they immediately go to Facebook to update their status and tell their family and friends what their day was like.  Then later, as they are cooking dinner they might tweet a picture of the dish they are preparing.  Another common part of many evening routines is now to sit down at one’s computer and write a blog post about something funny that happened in the day, or publish some insight about one’s personal life.  The global society is becoming increasingly dependent on the Internet and social media for their information and with this dependency comes a great opportunity for arts marketers.

It is no secret that arts organizations often rely on government funding or donations for their monetary support and consequently funding an in-depth marketing plan becomes difficult.  Social media is a great way for these organizations to engage in marketing at a low cost.  Organizations can make a free page on Facebook or profile on Twitter as well as producing a blog for their organizations.

Facebook pages are a good way for potential audience members to receive general information about an organization.  These pages contain much of the same information as an organization’s website would, but because of the convenience of Facebook they have the potential to be viewed more.  Young people are often more comfortable with the Facebook format and will directly search for products or information on Facebook instead of going to an organization’s website.  A Facebook page also allows one to “like” or become a fan of the page or organization so that they can receive updates about upcoming events.  Patrons can also connect with the organization on a more personal level by uploading pictures of themselves at an event to the page wall which gives the organization positive exposure to the patron’s friends as well.

Twitter is also a wonderful opportunity to keep audiences interested in attending performances.  Fans of the organization can follow them on Twitter and then view all of the organizations tweets.  While tweets can only be 140 characters, it is easy to send out one attention-grabbing message that gets readers interested so that they look for more information or click on a link attached to the tweet.  By tweeting promotional offers of “buy one get one free” tickets where patrons just need to reference the tweet, it can significantly boost ticket sales for a performance that is not selling well enough.

Twitter also allows an organization more control over how they choose to interact with their patrons.  A Twitter based marketing strategy that is gaining popularity is something commonly referred to as “tweet seats.”  These new seats are special spots set aside for audience members who would like to tweet during the performance of a play or classical music concert about what they are seeing and their personal reaction to it (Freedman).  The tweets are often directed at the organization’s Twitter page that has an intern or employee receiving and responding to the tweets in real time (Freedman).  Tweet seats are most popular among younger audience members and have been an excellent way to make new attendees feel comfortable in what can sometimes be a pretentious environment (Freedman).

Additionally, blogs of all types can be an asset to arts organizations marketing efforts.  If an organization has its own blog, it is possible for many employees to contribute ideas and articles so that patrons feel that they are getting to know the people of the organization, not just attending events.  Blog posts that feature a behind the scenes look at a specific production are also a beneficial way to raise awareness of upcoming events.  If an audience member has a particularly good experience at an event or performance they may dedicate a post on their personal blog to the experience, giving the arts organization greater exposure.

The use of marketing is an essential factor for any organizations survival.  All organizations are trying to sell something so as to achieve a certain goal, and while there can be great diversity in the product being presented and the end result desired, marketing strategies must be employed.  In the world’s developed societies where most everyone has a smart phone where they routinely update their Facebook and Twitter accounts, marketing has no choice but to adapt to these changes.  While the core principles and concepts of marketing remain the same, the introduction of social media has changed the way we live as individuals and receive information as consumers for the better.

Works Cited

Blythe, Jim. Essentials of Marketing. 3rd ed. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2005. Print.

Freedman, Richard, and Karen D’Souza. “The ‘tweet Seats’” Times-Herald. Vallejo Times-Herald, 5 Feb. 2012. Web. 16 Feb. 2012.             <http://www.timesheraldonline.com/ci_19898166>.

Hill, Liz, Catherine O’Sullivan, and Terry O’Sullivan. Creative Arts Marketing. 2nd ed. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2003. Print.

As we were asked to write a paper on marketing choosing a subject that deals with it i personally chose to talk about why it’s important for companies to use social networks, or at least to be present on the world wide web. So first of all i apologize for my mistakes because i’m french. Second of all i never followed a marketing course in my university, we just talked about why communication and advertisements are important for a company so i will try to give my point of view about this subject  using the right references.

Social networks are a part of everyone’s life today holding a huge part in social life, activities but also companies’ strategies. Internet crossing all borders, those networks connect people all around the world allowing them to have social interaction but also to know more about each other’s online and “instantaneously”.

Facebook, Twitter, Skype, LinkedIn are so many networks that connect people but also business manager all around the Earth.

But why does a company chose to integrate social networks into their marketing strategies.

Marketing gets a lot of definitions: it’s the management process which identifies, anticipates, and supplies customer requirements efficiently and profitably. (UK chartered Institute of Marketing)

It’s also seen as the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchange and satisfy individual and organizational objectives. (American Marketing Association)

For Jay Conrad Levinson”Marketing is not an event, but a process. . . . It has a beginning, a middle, but never an end. . . . You improve it, perfect it, change it, even pause in it. But you never stop it completely”.

The most important think for a company it’s their consumers and the public that they can reach, all their marketing is based on how they are going to touch them.

The Vaughn matrix shows perfectly the kind of target that companies want to reach with their strategy; it can be the cognitive level, the affective level or the conative level that affects them, with the DAGMAR model we could probably more talk about awareness, knowledge, preference, conviction and purchase.

 Marketing in the social media include a new rule: use mostly the net. Indeed this service is mainly free and is used to share and communicate. By using it they could reach more people, internet users that can rapidly become consumers, but also the global market. One of the most important things that a company should be able to consider is that internet is a world that is in continuous change and if their website can’t follow this change it can survive.

These key concepts can be abbreviated as follows: (Social Marketing Institute)

Action is the objective

The target audience is the focus

The exchange is critical

Segment markets

Use all four Ps

Analyze and beware of competition

Monitor and be flexible

 So the main question that they should ask themselves could be: How can I reach most of the population?

           A social network is defined as “a network of friends, colleagues, and other personal contacts” and moreover as an “online community of people with a common interest who use a Web site or other technologies to communicate with each other and share information or resources”.

Indeed it has become a real connection between people all around the earth, who can share, communicate, and even find a job thanks to internet. “Nobody owns the net; it is a communications medium spread across thousands (even millions) of computers worldwide, which operates independently of the telephone companies that supply its cable connections, of the governments in whose countries it resides, and even of the computer owners in whose machines data are stored. The net therefore operate under its own rules.”(Essentials of marketing, Jim Blithe,2005, third edition, page 323)

If we take a lot on certain kind of those social networks we can have some examples of this phenomenon.

Facebook is known to be a link between friends in which you can see what’s happening to your friends all around the planet and also talk to them whereas it was first created to regroup student of a specific campus in one country.

Skype was first a social network used by companies to communicate all over the world and also hired their employer or even fired them and became a network that everybody can use to communicate with their families or friends.

LinkedIn is a professional network that can “boost” your carrier and make you take contacts again with former professionals or even employees.

 But it will probably be easier to see how far it goes with some numbers:

-Facebook had 600 million monthly active users in January 2011.

-Twitter has 24+ million unique visitors per month, with 500 million tweets per day.

-LinkedIn has 60+ million professionals worldwide, including all Fortune 500 companies.

Unique visitors per month, as of February 2010:

Facebook: 133,623,529   ; MySpace: 50,615,444    ;Twitter: 23,573,178 ;Linkedin: 15,475,890

Today even cellular, which are for most of them android, allowed you to use those networks if you download the correct applications like twitter, facebook, or Skype. This was so obvious that companies had to integrate those networks to their strategies and make everything to be on the World Wide Web.

But why are those networks essential for a company?

The strategy of a company depend on what it want to show about itself, what kind of products they want to sell and which consumers they want to reach and how.

But it’s kind of the main point that every company want to reach so what come as the second main point in their strategy, being different, to diversify the firm from competitors.

As I said in the previous paragraph, millions of people are connected, millions of potential consumers that you can easily reach if you are a member of those networks or if you can make a partnership giving them money to put advertisements about you company in their “Wall”.

In fact advertisements are a huge part of those networks and a real financial help for them but the main problem is that they are bothering the internet users and they aren’t “cool” if we quote Mark Zuckerberg.

 Examples of a successful marketing strategy using social networks:

-Jimmy Choo’s founder launched an original campaign through “Foursquare” organizing a real treasure hunt in London streets. As you should know, Foursquare is, in short, a social network which enable people to show where they are and meet their friends or contacts there.By following the account @catchachoo on Twitter (another social network) and by following the “check-in” the internet users, who were able to figure out the place faster than the others, were winning a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes from the new collection.

 -Coca-Cola did a successful campaign on Facebook proposing to create a bottle with the name of the consumer, for a fee, and taking a picture of it to participate to their commercial game “give us your best shot”. More than ever, Coca-Cola succeeds allowing people to be closer without being in the same place.

But it can also be bad for a company to use them if they don’t really know how to use them in a proper way. If we take the fizzy drink brand Orangina for example, which is well known for its controversial advertisements already received complaints for advert showing animals lapdancing, was then attack for having use Facebook to post on their page that a racist sentence about Harry Potter. So even if they wanted to be close to their consumers they should have been more careful about the way of using it.

In my opinion those kind of Brand which are using the lovemark strategy should be really wise as for the use of social networks because they can create another kind of feeling and regards through this and it can become a real problem for them if they break the trust of their consumers.

In conclusion we can say that social networks have become a real institution for companies which want to grow up fastly and be different from their opponents.

Integrating social CMR to their strategy, companies can reach the E-market and propose their services online and allow consumers to buy their products online establishing trust between them.

Notes:

-http://www.graphicsms.com/blog/877-social-networking-statistics-2010/

-http://www.journaldunet.com/management/marketing/marketing-reseaux-sociaux/nokia.shtml

-http://fr.locita.com/reseaux-sociaux/integrer-les-reseaux-sociaux-dans-votre-strategie-marketing/

-http://www.social-marketing.com/Whatis.html

-http://www.social-marketing.org/sm.html

On one side source of income, skills, equipment, or service. The answer to this or that aid is usually a notice on the assistance or service exchange. Generally it can facilitate the promotion, development, financing of an event… a project. The demand for partnerships are not made in any way, we choose forcing the partner is able to provide us what we lack, and that we may be able to bring something.

I was responsible for the audiovisual association partnership “Visual Prod” for a year. My role was to find the combination of funds (money), capital investment (equipment photo and video), but also investments / contributions in kind (goodies. ..). Our association: Visual Prod is a junior company in charge of tracing the life of the school by photos and videos. Whether student parties, conferences with business, graduations, or even more abstract productions of internal promotion. The association has paid its benefits and good visibility (is seen by lots of students). The advantage is that we can in exchange for aid (see financial, material …) to allow certain companies to be seen in a context having nothing to do with the publicity and notoriety to promote and to heart of a target student.

Also, I would say that research on both, he must learn to put in their place to offer them what they expect in return for what is expected. It can be dazzling as the resulting scale of a company, purchase equipment photo is not much, when the finances associative output very heavy.

Martin de Beaune

Particularly fast and efficient (a very large target button allows easy segmentation + big addiction to these new means of communication), businesses have understood the challenge of this new tool. Development prospects are enormous: eventually we will probably consolidate on a single platform, a huge range of services. And it has already begun, the assimilative capacity of social media is extremely high, and they distribute: deliver applications, sell tickets, attract the tastes of individuals, promote such a product, brand or event will be soon not  a problem for community manager. The efficient future is to capture and take advantage of the opportunities our new “world” technology.

It will also have more speed, capacity… as it is now possible to connect anywhere via their mobile phone to access internet via simplified pages. So it’s paradise to Orwell’s 1984. A sort of telescreen, still upon us, ready to follow our movements, and will do even more.

Because of course the evolution of these new tools is consistent with the development of new jobs: for community managers, especially among companies that understand the stakes and development capabilities in this sector. This is a new battlefield for the company where: 1) it is good to its advertising, it touches a maximum of people (with selections on the tastes and expectations) 2) There is good and it will become necessary to develop the image of his company (if only to defend themselves in case of problems Cf.NESTLE / But also take a step ahead) 3) They can make savings after initial expenses (investment) in terms of community management, businesses will gain money. It costs nothing to develop its communication on Facebook.

From the point of individuals, social media (Facebook, Twitter…) are a mixture of web messaging, interactive forums, instant messaging, sharing photos and information system.

However, it was seen that there is already abuse the use of Facebook in particular. For example issues shares on topics particularly painful as the racism against black, red, or whatever. Still on specific topics. A man in France, after being attacked and undermined by people, managed to get the name of one of her attackers through the police and license plate. Without the ability to do anything… for lack of evidence. He decides to get a look on the Facebook account of her attacker who had the bad idea to get in public share. Once there, he falls from the clouds, seeing the articles of the type that brags about going downtown with friends to type and fight. A screenshot of him was enough to send him a trial and be crowned with success.

Another story: it is not necessarily very smart to share all its information on this platform. For example, completely fill address and indicate the dates of his vacation. An invitation to burglars somehow. It is easy for some hacker to manifest itself through small Internet programs that retrieve all kinds of information.

Also, from my point of view, this desire to share all bulimic every detail of his life shows a disorder in society in general. Not necessarily new, nor necessarily very serious (as a consequence I mean). But that pushes people to develop the worst aspects of their personality and that of course is extremely time-consuming.

Martin de Beaune

• The form: not objective, unilateral, wants to influence not only inform. Information are sales pitch.
• The content: publicity campaign messages are brief, concise and selective. The main goal is to catch the attention.

An enterprise can use a lot of ways to communicate: mass media (TV, radio, press, posters), or more original ways: events, design, press relation, the internet, and streets marketing… Advertising works on prejudice, views, opinions and attitude.

There are different stages in the operation of advertising: cognitive stages (brand awareness), emotional (to love the brand) and conative (to buy). However, there is no direct relationship between advertising and sales or turnover. Because advertising works over time, we must give him time to settle, to create standards and conventions (up to the dictatorship of behavior).

When we look ads, we note that the leading brands are taking fewer risks in their advertising creations. As if they wanted a blocking effect to stay the market leader and freeze positions (consolidation). Challenger brands are trying to promote change. They have more to gain than to lose (persuasion).

• Thus, in the approach to leadership, the message is formatted, creativity and degree of freedom is low. The approach is quantitative: what is important is not the creation but the investment, maximizing OTS (opportunity to see). This is not the quality of advertising that will the effectiveness of advertising, but its hype.
• On the other hand, in the approach of a challenger, creative advertising is strong. But creativity is an opportunity for the brand: it is not there to be creative for fun (is that is good mage or not?) (seduction).

There are many ways to respond to a target or at least get his attention. An advertisement may use emotional / rational perception aspects, emphasizing a sense of guilt or indifference. It is also possible to make them work by proposing a direct or indirect readability of the message, picture… Or to dream about the reality or imaginary. You can talk to the child or adult in every person… Advertising is primarily a creation.

Commercial advertising communicates about the product, its main objective is to sell more than loyalty. And his targets are rather external, it is the type of oldest pub. Corporate advertising communicates about the company and the brand image and reputation it is communicating more about the company targets to internal and external (internal first).

The particular means of capturing the attention differently is to use media to a captive audience, or intrusive forms of advertising (means = painful telemarketing, phoning, selling door to door and street-marketing). Catchy advertising (the breakdown of traditional advertising codes, seductive advertising, the disobedience, the teasing) is also very effective.

Martin de Beaune

IEG hosts the website sponsorship.com, an online resource that connects one to blogs, news, jobs, forums, and reports. Most interesting are the articles in their news category, where they keep everyone up to date on new information regarding market trends and companies new ventures in sponsorship.

So why do companies become sponsors? Companies spend more money in sponsorship as a platform to raise its profile and connect with consumers. The whole idea is to raise awareness, giving consumers a chance to realize a clear brand identity.

The role that sponsorship plays in the US is quite substantial. With little funding from the government or grants, most of the capital for an event is raised through the ticket sales, donations, and sponsors. The arts is typically the category that grows the least as far as what is spent through sponsorship during the year. The arts sector took a heavy hit following the recession of 2008, a time when two of the arts largest sponsor categories, automotive and financial services, started to fall. With many of these companies slowly regaining momentum, the arts are expected to see slight improvement as spending increases.

The losses that many arts organizations faced caused them to position themselves as marketing partners, instead of just an organization that would otherwise be the beneficiary of donated dollars. This cultural shift to creating partnership is changing the industry, where the objectives are  now both business to business and business to consumer.

Agnieszka Dobrzańska

With that many viewers, the super bowl provides the perfect platform for advertisements, where companies pull out all the stops to convince consumers to turn to their product/company. This is especially true since about half of the people watching the super bowl tuned in more to watch the commercials than the actual football game.

New Corporation Fox charged advertisers an estimated $2.8 – $3 million dollars for 30 second spots in the Super Bowl XLV. From 2001 through 2010, the Super Bowl has accounted for over seven hours of commercial time, representing more than 850 announcements and $1.62 billion of network advertising sales, according to Kantar Media.

Is the cost actually worth it? Surprisingly…yes. Super Bowl advertising firms typically outperform the S&P 500 from the Monday before the Super Bowl through the Friday after the game. In a poll by the Minneapolis market research firm, 43% of those polled plan to re-watch their favorite ads and 31% plan to pass those along to others via email or social networking sites.

Over the years it is not only the price of the time spot that has changed, but also what the companies are actually selling. Commercials now have started to change from selling products to selling feelings. Consumers watch the commercials for entertainment; a good commercial leaves a good feeling, which leads to consumer confidence in the company and their products.

OuiBox is a free site that puts together the user’s email, facebook, twitter, and YouTube accounts, all while having its own social network, news, calendar, photo, music, video, and blogging applications.

The main feature of the site is the writing tool he developed, called OuiWrite. As you write a paper, it uses internet search engines to research papers as you write them. It also formats the layout, spacing, and pages/numbers. Once documents are done you can email them or even upload them straight to your blog. Coming soon to the website is OuiWrite Legal, where one can automate legal research and writing.

OuiBox and OuiWrite both have their own iPhone App in the App Store for free. This makes it easy to have access to your music, videos, blogs, and even papers on your phone or iPod.

Possibly the best feature of OuiBox is OuiLove, which supports charities. When a user visits a website through OuiBox and makes a purchase, a portion of the purchase price goes to support the relief organizations they have partnered with, such as Invisible Children, World Vision, and Village Project Africa. Their OuiShop provides an easy platform to search for retailers they have partnered with.

Worldly best known Czech label would probably be Pilsner Urquell which is among others sponsoring alternative festival United Islands of Prague and hard rock festival Masters of Rock.

Another beer producer Staropramen is a partner of the biggest Czech rock summer festival called Rock for People.

Velkopopovický Kozel, which is popular also in Finland, concentrates on folk and country festivals. In the past, the concern has sponsored for example the folk festival Zahrada (Garden).

Gambrinus beer builds up an image of a Czech beer for Czech people and probably that’s why it has sponzored the music festival Benátská noc (The Venetian Night), which is connected with Czech rock stars and only rare international participation.

Very popular is Colours of Ostrava world music festival, one of the biggest summer events, and its traditional sponsor is Radegast – a little beer producer coming from the Ostrava city region. We could mention plenty similar situations of local beer producer supporting a local festival: České hrady (Czech Castles) festival sponsored by Krušovice, Hrachovka festival sponsored by Ostravar or Trnkobraní sponsored by Starobrno.

The main reason why beer producers tend to support summer music festivals is that those are events where beer is drunk a lot and by sponsoring the producers get exclusive contracts to sell their products in the festival parks. Another argument would be the cosy feeling of a festival and its experience that the concerns want to participate on. Last but not least the released atmosphere of summer festivals are one of the rare ways how to actually match a beer culture with arts.