Certificate of Social Media Marketing - The Complete Course

Social media has become one of the dominant forms of communication in the digital space drastically altering the traditional relationship between a consumer and a business. Modern professionals need to know how to leverage this important marketing channel to grow their business and protect its reputation.

Integrated marketing communications (IMC) is a concept approach used by majority of organisations to develop a strategic plan on how they are going to broadcast their marketing and advertising campaigns. Nowadays there has been a shift in the way marketers and advertisers interact with their consumers and now see it as a conversation between Advertising/ Marketing teams and consumers. IMC has emerged as a key strategy for organisations to manage customer experiences in the digital age. The more traditional advertising practices such as newspapers, billboards and magazines are still used, but fail to have the same effect now as they did in previous years.

Media channels are also known as marketing channels and act as the binding substance used by an advertising campaign to create a connection with the target consumer. Traditional methods of communication with the consumer include newspapers, magazines, Radio, television, billboards, telephone, post and door to door sales to name a few traditional methods. Some of these traditional methods are still very effective for some industries and not so for others. For instance advertising in a newspaper to target consumers in the age range of 15-25 does not have a very effective result, as this target market is unlikely to be flicking through their local newspaper.

With advancements in Internet technology, internet communication is becoming a promising marketing tool. These tools include websites, blogs, social media, email, mobile, and search engines as a few examples. It is important for an advertising campaign to carefully select channels based on where their target consumer spends time to ensure market and advertising efforts are maximised. Having said this word of mouth continues to be effective for most businesses.

When an organisation begins to construct their advertising campaign they need to research all aspects of their target market/ target consumer. The target consumer is the person or group of people who are most likely to buy from an organisation. A target consumer can be categorized be several key characteristics; Gender, age, occupation, material status, geographical location, behavioural,level of income and education to name the main factors

Guerrilla marketing is an advertising strategy which increases brand exposure through the use of unconventional campaigns which initiate social discussion and "buzz". This can often be achieved with lower budgets than conventional advertising methods, allowing small and medium sized businesses the chance to compete against larger competitors. Through unconventional methods, inventiveness and creativity, guerrilla marketing leaves the receiver with a long lasting impression of the brand as most guerrilla marketing campaigns target the receivers at a personal level, taking them by surprise and may incorporate an element of shock. Guerrilla marketing is typically executed exclusively in public places, including streets, parks, shopping centres etc, to ensure maximum audience resulting in further discussion on social media.