Essay: Report On Social Media Marketing Strategy For Dove.

Introduction to Dove and Social Media

Discuss about the Report for Social Media Marketing for Product Dove.

Dove is a famous international brand that already has a strong presence on social media. It is extended to body wash, hair care, beauty bar, lotions, deodorants, and face. Dove used emotional appeal to create a distinct position in the market. It addressed woman’s tendency to used better beauty products.  Social media strategy of the company is also highlighting this aspect and good mix of different social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram are being used by the company. This report will analyse the effectiveness of the existing social media strategy and propose the social media strategy for this product.

Dove segmented its market on the basis of demographic and psychographic factors. On the basis of demographic factors it targeted upper class working women. And on the basis of psychology, women who want to look equal to beauty and used strategy to influence the psychology of targeted customers that they can look beautiful using Dove’s products. Apart from this, it is using Real Beauty campaign since a decade. In this campaign, it used typical normal women in advertisement and shown the effect of its product on that women. It used different social media to promote its marketing campaign. It used Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and Twitter. These media played a vital role in promoting the brand image of Dove. Social media provided Dove with a platform where it gets to interact with potential customers directly.

Situation analysis is a systematic method that collects the information about internal and external factors that affect the performance of the organization. SWOT analysis has been used to assess the situation of Dove in the market and identified factors would be used in analyzing the Social Media strategy.

SWOT analysis:

Dove is a personal care brand in the world that is possessed by the Unilever. Company offers its products in more than 35 countries for men and women (Burrow and Fowler, 2015). These are the four elements of SWOT analysis for the brand Dove which is as followed: 

Strengths:

Dove is availed with resources under the control of Unilever. Dove has strong marketing campaign that helps the organization in creating distinct position of brand in mind of customers. Dove includes the ¼ moisturizing cream in its products that is good for the skin. Along with this, dove brand make promise to customers that dove products not leave any remainder on the skin (Griffin, 2011). It growing and developing a wide range of beauty products that helps the customers in selection of products. This positioning of the brand ‘Dove’ is further enhanced through the use of social media. It has large number of follower on social media such as Facebook, Youtube and Twitter.

Situational Analysis of Dove

Weakness:

The main weakness of the brand is the target market. This brand targets only upper middle class female segments worldwide which affects the brand image of the products. There is lack of awareness of brand among the large part of population in the world and company would like to further spread the reach of this brand. Apart from this, Dove has not a larger range of its products in comparison of its competitor brands that affect the buying decision of the customers. Furthermore, in comparison of its competitors Dove does not have a wide range of male products. So, male customers buy less products of the brand in comparison of female customers. It does not post the videos and pictures of campaign on social media.  

Opportunity:

There is an opportunity for Dove to expand its market share by promoting the brand through social media. It will also help Dove in attracting number of male customers (Fujii, 2013). Along with this, brand should continue focusing on the product innovation. Furthermore, Dove use the mix advertising that increases the cost of the brand for reducing the cost company have opportunity to make a single advertisement for whole world.  Dove can get access to large geographical areas and can extend its target customers to middle class women and men. There is number of social media which it can use to promote its products such as Flicker, Blogger, LinkedIn, and Slide share.

Threats:

There are main threats to Dove from its competitors such as Olay, Neutrogena, and Nivea. On the global level, there are many brands are available which have different products prices in comparison of Dove. Dove has low deodorants products for men that are a threat for Dove. Along with this, Dove is a famous brand but it is famous on large scale in metro cities and company offer its products for the particular group as higher income and upper middle class group peoples that is threat for the company. Moreover, Dove’s real beauty campaign is a hypocritical campaign which shows the false beauty in advertisements (Fifield, 2012). Dove does not follow certain ethical norms in its advertisements campaigns that may be great threats for it. This will also have impact on its social media marketing strategy.

Proposed marketing strategy of Dove is presented in detailed form that the brand in expansion of its operational activities (Ferrell and Hartline, 2013). The mix of social media marketing can be used to increase the awareness among people.  Dove can use facebook, twitter, Youtube, Instagram, Blogger, Flicker, and LinkedIn.

Proposed Marketing Strategy of Dove

Facebook:

Facebook is a good platform to connect with large number of targeted customers for Dove. Facebook helps the Dove in sharing pictures and videos of the company advertisement and an individual’s experience from the brand. Furthermore, Facebook will provide facility to Dove of talking with its existing and potential customers that creates long term relationship with customers and sharing the information about products (Zimmerman and Ng, 2015). Furtermore, Dove can develop a chat system on facebook  and can get it linked to its website where it can receive the feedback from customers directly. The company use a Beauty Story campaign on Facebook that focus on Dove Beauty Bar product. This campaign of the brand developed for the sharing the experience to use of products. it makes strong brand image of the company and this type of marketing activity of the company makes it separate from the competitor’s brand. Now Dove has 26,429,936 likes on the site of the brand which states that Dove has good brand position. Furthermore, the company can develop a team who will post innovative advertisements on the Facebook on regular basis.

• Twitter:

Twitter increases the level of customer satisfaction by helping the consumers to connect with the brand and providing different types of services such as providing the information about updates in Dove Company and information related to products and services of the brand (Evans, 2010). Along with this, Dove can share the videos and presentations related to product and brand that will help it in promoting its brand image. Furthermore, Twitter helps the Dove in offering different types of information related to special offers and events that capture its customer attention towards brand. Through the use of this strategy, Dove collects feedback from its existing and potential customers which helps in the identifying customer needs and wants. On the basis of collected feedback from Twitter activities, Dove monitors its performance and reputation of the brand. Dove runs a Speak Beautiful campaign that helps the company in identifying negative comments for the body image (Tuten and Solomon, 2014). Along with this, this campaign of the brand also encourages brand followers for the reducing negative comments which relates to body. In current scenario Twitter site of Dove have 188K followers and 4641 likes.

Apart from this, Dove can develop a campaign in which it can takes recommendation from customers about the improvement in the product.

Instagram:

Facebook

Instagram helps Dove in connecting with customers that are active user base. In whole world user takes use Instagram at larger number in comparison of Facebook and Twitter. Dove have brand post 1487 images which have 7.1 m followers. So, Dove uses this strategy to connect with its customers which helps in creating positive brand image. On the Instagram Dove uploads pictures of its products and collects feedback about product and brand that helps the brand in achieving goals and objectives.  Through the collected feedbacks Dove get the information that which type products customers wants. Along with this, Dove founds new customers and followers through the facility of hash tags that are included in the post that creates a link which helps Dove in showing all the pictures of Dove (Anderson, 2010). Along with this, Dove can post the pictures of its marketing campaign. 

YouTube:

YouTube is an online tool that helps in share advertisements and other videos on lowest cost. Dove uses this strategy in showing the Real Beauty Sketches campaign that helps brand to introduce the women about beauty. Along with this, Dove uploads its brand and products video on the YouTube that makes it popular in the world and collects the review about the product which brand offer. Through the use of this strategy Dove can share easily all the possible advertisement and campaign. Furthermore, YouTube are being used worldwide that shows the videos which can also shared by this strategy (Evans, 2012). Thus advertising campaign and promotional video of Dove have the 12,634,926 views on “My Beauty My Say” campaign video on YouTube. Along with this, it should follow ethical norms in its advertisements.

Furthermore, it may also go with Tumblr, MySpace, LinkedIn, Slide Share, and Blogger. These will provide Dove with more connectivity with people. These can help Dove to promote its product and develop the relationship with its customers.

Dove will determine its goals and objectives of getting large part of peoples aware about its brand using social media marketing.  It should aim to attract a large number of customers with a view to increase its sales and market shares. Then it will evaluate different media of social marketing to select the best one or more medias. It will have to analyze each social media which will help it to address some best Media mix which had potential of increasing its market share and expending the market. After selecting from main social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, Dove developed its profile on each media. After developing profile it linked these Media to its Website which provide updates.

After having a link with social media, it should hire an advertisement agency which will develop innovative concept in advertisement for different social media platforms. Along with this, it should develop a plan of social media monitoring where customer can put their comments about the product. It helps Dove to determine its position in the mind of customer. It developed different campaigns such as a Beauty Story of Facebook, Speak Beautiful campaign for Twitter and “My Beauty My Say” campaign video for YouTube. Apart from this, it should hire some experts who can create marketing campaign for promoting Dove on social media platforms on regular basis.

Furthermore, the monitoring of the performance of the Dove’s promotional campaign on social medias on regular basis shall be done.

There is no doubt that Dove has become the choice of customers for their personal care products. Dove should provide true information to customers about the features and functions of its beauty products and take feedbacks from the customers through social media channels. Apart from this, it should post more video and posters on facebook and Youtube. Dove shall create specific marketing campaigns for the social media marketing channels as facebook, Youtube, Instagram provide access to a large number of their targeted customers.

References

Anderson, E. (2010) Social Media Marketing: Game Theory and the Emergence of Collaboration. GERMANY: Springer Science & Business Media.

Burrow, J. L. and Fowler, A. R. (2015) Marketing. USA: Cengage Learning.

Evans, D. (2012) Social Media Marketing. USA: John Wiley & Sons.

Evans, L. (2010) Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media. USA: Pearson Education.

Ferrell, O. C. and Hartline, M. (2013) Marketing Strategy, Text and Cases. USA: Cengage Learning.

Fifield, P. (2012) Marketing Strategy. UK: Routledge.

Fujii, T. (2013) Global Competitive Advantage Skill of Balanced Scorecard By SWOT Analysis and Strategic Map. USA: TOM PUBLISHING.

Griffin, R. W. (2011) Fundamentals of Management. USA: Cengage Learning.

Tuten, T. L. and Solomon, R. M. (2014) Social Media Marketing. USA: SAGE.

Zimmerman, J. and Ng, D. (2015) Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies. USA: John Wiley & Sons.