Global Social Media Research Summary †Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about the Global Social Media Research Summary. Answer: Introduction: A strategy can be defined as a key approach or a plan which an organization seeks to undertake in order to achieve success. A strategy plays a key role in determining the position of any firm in the competitive business environment. The media and communication landscape has undergone a huge change in the past decade and this had lead to a need in changing their various strategies as well (Danesi 2014). This strategy has been focused on making the firm gain dominance in the market and sustains the competitive edge. The given essay will throw light on the various strategies which have been applied by the media and communications firm to gain a competitive edge in the business environment. A critical analysis of the market they operate in will be done along with discussion on the various challenges that the company tends to face. The main part of the given essay will discuss the strategies applied by these firms and how they have evolved with time. Certain examples of international firms will also be discussed in order to see how the firm adapts to the given strategies (Carim and Warwick 2013). Certain recommendations as to how to improve these strategies will also be provided. The given section will be critically analyzing the current market place for the digital and communication firms. The market place analysis goes a long way in helping the firm to become more customer centric and enhancing their activities (Harrison and Wessels 2013). It goes a long way in helping the firm to understand what the customers desire and what the company should offer them with respect to the products and services. Marketplace Analysis The market analysis also goes a long way in improving the effectiveness of one`s operations and check how a company`s strategy is effective as compared to its competitors. Very often certain firms tend to perform SWOT Analysis in order to identify the effectiveness of the operations and the current market conditions. This analysis of the market place can be done using various strategic management tools like Pestle analysis and Porter`s five forces (Curran, Fenton and Freedman 2016). For the purpose of this essay, the Porter`s five forces will be discussed. The porters five forces is a strategic management tools which reviews the organization`s environment, in this case the media and communications business environment from five different viewpoints. The first viewpoint is the threat of new entrants which can be described as the possibility that there will be new entries in the industry. In case of the media and communications segment, the threat of new entrants is comparatively low as because there exists high set up and distribution costs. The next aspect is the bargaining power of the supplier which can be described as the authority of the suppliers in the value chain. In the media industry the given power is moderate as the costs associated in the given industry are more or less fixed (Gauntlett 2015). The third aspect is the bargaining power of the customers, this determines how strong the customers are. The power of the customers is very high and they have adequate bargaining power. This is because they have a wide variety of options available at their disposal which range from, news channels, newspapers, online sources and others. The fourth aspect is the threat of substitutes . The threat of substitutes is extremely high in the given industry as internet penetration has bought about various options for the different users. Lastly, the degree of rivalry aspect is checked (Couldry and Hepp 2013). The degree of rivalry in the given industry is also very high and there exists cut throat competition. In modern marketing, it's essential that situation analysis aims to summarize an organizations online marketplace and its own performance to help devise or refine a digital marketing strategy. Challenges for Media companies After analyzing the marketplace of the firm, it can be figured that the following challenges are being faced by the media firms . The first challenge lies in getting enough clients for the firm and retaining them (Picard 2014). There are a large number of customers, however their needs are quite varied. Their varied needs may make it difficult for the different media and Communications Company to capture the consumer market. Furthermore, clients are often fickle minded which makes it extremely difficult for the firm, to retain the existing customer base. The second challenge faced by the media and communications is the challenge of attracting top talent. Talent plays an extremely crucial role in the organization and finding the right talent is an extremely difficult task (Chaffey 2016).As the media industry works in direct contact with the customers, it is essential for them to see to it that all their demands are met with. Hence, the problem attracting of the right kind employees prevails. The third and the most critical challenge as faced by the media and communications company the management of client expectations (Vinerean et al., 2013). Client tends to form the most important stakeholder in the business scenario and if a firm is unable to manage the client base then it faces backslash and the good name of the organization also gets affected. The changing media landscape has also posed as a huge challenge in front of the companies, as the whole landscape of the Public Relations activities has changed considerably and this has lead to a challenge for the traditional public relations firms. The most important part of the essay will be discussed now which is the change in the key strategies of the firm to gain competitive advantage (Armstrong et al., 2015). This analysis will be divided into three different periods: Strategy of networking relations in the domain.. Relationships often tend to form an essential aspect of business in the media and communications sector. These relations have to be maintained with various Public relations firms, advertising agencies, personalities and other players to ensure that the firm is able to satisfy its clients and is able to communicate on behalf of them. In the period of 2008-102, the use of the given method was very relevant as the firms wanted to maintain a large data base of both clients and prospective partners to achieve success (Stelzner 2014). Credibility played a key role in determining business networks and the company had to prove to the partners and networking associates that it is capable of carrying out its job successfully. Use of technology , for instance the online medium. Technology had just been identified as a potential medium to communicate the objectives of the different firm`s to its customers and hence for this reason, the communication firms had been making efficient use of technology to carry out its media strategy. This included various aspects like email marketing, website marketing and other activities. Monitoring the web based data. With further development in technology, web based strategies increased considerably because monitoring the web became very convenient for the firms. By using various web monitoring tools, the media and communications firms were able to harness exactly what was required out of them and what kind of company`s advertisement the customers preferred. Using these websites, the advertisement sand news articles about the companies were uploaded which then made the client company more popular. Increasing social awareness. As terrorism and other economic problems grow around the work during the given time frame, social awareness became the need of the hour and the communications and media company will required to do something which would have spread social awareness among the customers and portray the good deeds that was being done by the company (Turhan 2013). Through this aspect, various media and communications firm made use of the social awareness techniques to make their client firs more popular. Just like Mc. Donald`s formed a social awareness strategy to help the company to improve its image in the eyes of the customers. With use of the given strategy the firm was able to overcome the negative reviews that generally surface during global crises. The era 2015-2018 witnessed a steep rise in the emergence of social media platforms as a medium and strategy which could be captured by the communications and Media Company in order to ensure the respective audience was captured. Social media strategy application. Social media marketing and communications comprised of the media company making use of various social content in order to ensure that the firm has attained adequate publicity and becomes viral in the eyes of the customers. This medium involves the use of various social media websites like that of Instagram, Facebook and Twitter in order to convey the message of the company to the customers (Mulhern 2013). Various stories and blogs are put up which help to gain success. This does not take place in the blink of an eye and has to be planned successful. Various aspects like the kind of content to be shared, Managers of the social media account, how to engage customers, objectives to be achieved needs to be kept in mind so that the firm`s communication strategy is successful. Using Data analytics strategy. Data analysis and analytics has become one of the latest strategies which are generally used by the media and communications firms in order to gain the attention of the target audience. In data analytics, the communications and media companies make use of their previous years data in order to analyze the future demands and requirements of the various customers. Data analytics helps the firm to manage it social media activities also by giving them an accurate detail of how many views have they received, what kind of stories they prefer, what is their most used product as per reviews and other relevant facts. From the given it can be stated that not all strategies have been successful and there have been certain strategies which failed miserably (Tuten and Solomon 2017). If each strategy over the given years is taken it can be analyzed that the best strategies were the ones that engaged maximum customer attention. These strategies were the recent use of Data analytics and social media marketing. These two are closely interlinked with one another and go a long way in helping a firm to analyze the desired target market and the kind of media strategies that need to be applied for a given firm (Kambatla et al., 2014). Data analytics helped the firms to measure the response they were gaining and also went a long way to help them with their social media strategies. On the other hand, the strategies which were not successful over the time were strategies like harnessing technology in the wrong method. Just mere use of technology, would not help, the firm has to utilize the right mediums and apply the technology in a manner such that the firm achieves long term success in its operations. In the following section, the examples of some international media and communications will be given and their use of various strategies will be portrayed. Walt Disney is one of the largest media and entertainment companies in the world with a large international presence (The Walt Disney Company. ,2018). The company has a wide variety of consumer products, studio entertainment facilities and Interactive media techniques like gaming and marketing mobile game which helps the organization to promote its message into the outside world. The next big company in this domain is the Twenty First Century Fox Inc. focusing on broadcasting (Foxnews.com , 2018). The broadcasting firm goes a long way in promoting their client content on Television, Direct Broadcast and Filmed Television system These companies apply various strategies to increase their consumer base. These strategies include various strategies like social media marketing, use of data analytics, web based advertising and live streaming to promote client content. Recommendations Although the various firms in the media industry have been making use of different strategies and techniques to promote its product in the market, the following strategies can be applied in order to ensure that the firms perform well. The first strategy is to maintain an authentic relationship (Raghupathi and Raghupathi, 2014). The media and communication companies need to ensure that they are able to maintain authentic relationships with the various clients and public relationship alike. This is extremely important for the business to survive in the long run. The second recommendation states that the company needs to make use of data analytics and create the persona for every buyer in the market place (Armstrong et al., 2015). These personas can be created with the help of social media platforms and websites which would then assist the firm in seeing to it that it is being able to successfully implement its operations based on the consumer perception. It is important to provide relevant content to the customers because if they are not provided with the relevant content then they would not get engaged in the idea or the service which is being offered to them which would then result in making the organizational goal unachievable. The media companies need to focus on Quality engagement. Very often the media firms tend to believe that engaging in the large number of public interactions would lead to a higher response from the side of the customer, however this is not the case (Miller 2013). The general public or the one which has been targeted needs to be engaged in a content which is of good quality. If the richness of the message being portrayed is good, it would be beneficial for the firm in the long run. The firms also need to ensure that the content that they are providing must not be offensive and the primary objective of providing entertainment to the client is fulfilled. This is because , when the companies tend to bring up something offensive and against a particular caste or a religion then the media company as well as the client company might get affected. Therefore, from the above analysis undertaken on the key strategies used by the media and communication companies in order to achieve competitive advantage revealed that as the media landscapes have been changing considerably, it has become increasingly important for the firms to ensure that they make use of new and modern strategies to see to it that there message on behalf of their clients has the ability to reach to the customers in the most attractive manner (Kaur 2016). The given essay has been divided into various sections, each section providing a case for the development of the chosen topic. The essay began with a brief introduction on the given topic which was followed by a critical analysis on the market place. The challenges as posed by the company have been portrayed . This was followed by the various strategies that the firms have been using over the past 10 years. Certain practical examples have also been provided followed by recommendations to improve the same. It can be stated that be it any business whether media or communications or of a different category, it is extremely important for a firm to ensure that it is constantly indulging in the market research and also seeing to it that the firm possesses the ability to survive in the domain for a long period of time. References Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015.Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education. Carim, L.A.R.A. and Warwick, C., 2013. Use of social media for corporate communications by research-funding organisations in the UK.Public relations review,39(5), pp.521-525. Chaffey, D., 2016. Global social media research summary 2016.Smart Insights: Social Media Marketing. Couldry, N. and Hepp, A., 2013. Conceptualizing mediatization: Contexts, traditions, arguments.Communication Theory,23(3), pp.191-202. Curran, J., Fenton, N. and Freedman, D., 2016.Misunderstanding the internet. Routledge. Danesi, M., 2014.Dictionary of media and communications. Routledge. 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