SNS stands for Social Networking Services, which refers specifically to Internet application services designed to help people build social networks. Another commonly used explanation of SNS is Social Network Site, which means “social networking site” or “social network”. SNS marketing refers to the use of these social networks to establish product and brand groups, hold activities, and use the characteristics of SNS sharing to carry out marketing activities such as viral marketing.
(I) Characteristics of SNS Marketing
(1) Precise Target Users
SNS users are based on real social circles and have a high degree of clustering. They show a relatively obvious natural division of age in terms of age, region, gender, economic level, etc., which makes it easier for companies to identify user groups and carry out marketing promotion.
(2) Low Marketing Cost
SNS marketing basically relies on soft promotion, and the cost is much lower than advertising. At the same time, because it is based on social relationships, the main medium of SNS social network marketing is users, and the main method is “word of mouth”, so it can obtain natural secondary and multi-level expansion of communication, and does not rely on wide coverage.
(II) SNS Marketing Methods
(1) Display ads customized for target audiences
Since social networking sites have access to users’ personal information such as age, gender, region, education level, hobbies, etc., advertisers can more accurately target their target audiences. For example, Facebook and MySpace both have advertising platforms that allow advertisers to place ads by themselves.
(2) Product placement ads integrated with social game scenes
Similar to product placement ads in movies, advertisers’ brands and product information are integrated into the scenes and props of social networking sites. The products or brands that are placed are highlighted to a certain extent, and users generally do not resist them, which often helps to close the distance between advertisers and users.
(3) Experiential ads that use word-of-mouth
This form of viral marketing makes full use of the information flow between social network users and integrates e-commerce behavior with word-of-mouth marketing. Compared with promotional TV ads, consumers may be more likely to trust a few words from their friends. This approach can encourage businesses to pay more attention to the intrinsic quality of their products. Excellent products will likely receive more favorable comments and be more widely disseminated in interpersonal networks.
(4) Event marketing in the form of applications
The advertiser’s promotional activities are packaged in the form of applications and released, allowing users to freely add and use them, and spread them through interpersonal interaction. Coca-Cola was the first advertiser to try social network marketing. It promoted it in the form of prize-winning activities on 51.com and Xiaonei.com platforms, encouraging users to send New Year’s greetings to friends and invite friends to participate, making good use of the characteristics of word-of-mouth communication on social networking sites.