Unit 6.2
Social Marketing
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
- ✅ Define social marketing and its role in e-commerce.
- ✅ Compare the key features and strengths of major social media platforms.
- ✅ Identify appropriate social marketing strategies for different business goals.
- ✅ Analyze the social marketing landscape in the context of Nepal.
What is Social Marketing?
Definition: The use of social media platforms to connect with an audience to build a brand, increase sales, and drive website traffic.
It's not just about posting; it's about building a strategic presence.
- 🎯 Build Brand Identity & Awareness
- 🤝 Foster Community & Engagement
- 📈 Drive Leads & Sales
📺 vs 📱 Traditional Advertising vs Social Marketing
Traditional (TV, print, billboard)
- One-way broadcast
- Broad audience, rough targeting
- Hard to measure who acted
- High upfront cost
Social marketing
- Two-way conversation
- Targeted by interest, age, location
- Every click and share is measurable
- Start small, scale what works
The big shift: on social, customers can answer back — and their friends see it.
🔄 The Social Marketing Process: 5 Steps
| Step | What happens | Measure |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Fan acquisition | Attract people to your page or profile | Followers, impressions, reach |
| 2. Engagement | People like, comment, watch, click | Engagement rate, time spent, comments |
| 3. Amplification | Fans share to their own friends | Shares, reposts, tags, new reach from shares |
| 4. Community | A stable group talks with the brand and each other | Active members, repeat contributors, sentiment |
| 5. Brand strength & sales | Attention turns into revenue and loyalty | Conversions, sales from social, repeat buyers |
Exam tip: name the step and one measure for each.
🎬 Watch: From Reel to Referral
The Major Platforms: A Snapshot
Historical source counts; platform sizes and names have changed. Twitter is now X. Script figures are preserved, not current benchmarks.
Each platform has a massive, distinct user base and purpose.
2.9B+ users
The Global Town Square
1B+ users
The Visual Showcase
830M+ users
The Professional Network
⚡ Key Insight: Your target audience determines your platform choice.
Platform Spotlight: Can You Identify Them?
Click each card to reveal which platform matches the clue.
Facebook: The Behemoth
With the largest user base, Facebook offers unparalleled reach.
- Facebook Pages: Your business's digital storefront. A central hub for updates, customer service, and brand info.
- Facebook Ads: Powerful, granular targeting based on demographics, interests, and behavior. Essential for reaching new customers.
- Facebook Groups: Build a dedicated community around your brand or a specific interest, fostering loyalty and engagement.
🧮 Organic vs Paid: Why Pages Pay to Be Seen
A Kathmandu bakery's Facebook Page has 10,000 followers. (Illustrative figures.)
- Organic post: the feed algorithm shows it to about 5% of followers → 500 people.
- Boosted post: Rs 2,000 at an example cost of Rs 150 per 1,000 views (CPM) → 2,000 ÷ 150 × 1,000 ≈ 13,300 views, including non-followers.
- Since Facebook's 2018 feed change towards "meaningful interactions" with friends and family, brand pages have found organic reach hard to grow.
Organic builds trust and community; paid buys reach. Most businesses need both.
Twitter vs. Pinterest
Twitter 📣
Real-time information and conversation.
- Use Case: Breaking news, customer service, public conversation.
- Twitter Ads: Promote tweets to a wider, targeted audience.
- Twitter Cards: Attach rich media (images, videos) to tweets for higher engagement.
Pinterest 📌
Visual discovery and inspiration.
- Use Case: E-commerce, lifestyle, DIY, recipes, home decor.
- Promoted Pins: Native ads that appear in user feeds and search results.
- Rich Pins: Automatically sync info from your website (like price and stock) to your Pins.
Instagram vs. LinkedIn
Instagram 📸
Visually-driven brand storytelling (B2C focus).
- Use Case: Fashion, food, travel, lifestyle products.
- Instagram Ads: Leverages Facebook's powerful ad-targeting system.
- Instagram Stories: Ephemeral content for authentic, behind-the-scenes engagement.
LinkedIn 👔
Professional networking and B2B marketing.
- Use Case: B2B lead generation, industry leadership, recruitment.
- Company Pages: Establish your professional brand presence.
- Sponsored Content: Promote posts to a professional audience based on job title, industry, etc.
Engagement Rate Calculator
Engagement Rate = (Likes + Comments) ÷ Followers × 100%
Activity: Platform Strategy
Scenario 🔍
A new boutique hotel is opening in Pokhara. Their target audience is international tourists (25-45) and local newly-weds looking for "staycations."
Question: Which TWO platforms should they prioritize for their launch campaign, and what type of content should they create for each?
Hint: Think about where people go for visual inspiration vs. where they might look for deals or community reviews.
What Makes Content Go Viral?
🎬 Watch: Nominate, Film, Share
🔥 Real Cases: Emotion + Easy Sharing
🧊 ALS Ice Bucket Challenge (2014)
Pour, post, tag three friends. The ALS Association reported about US$115 million raised in roughly eight weeks.
👟 Nike "Dream Crazy" (2018)
Featuring Colin Kaepernick split opinion and boycotts trended — yet analysts reported Nike's online sales rose in the days after.
Match each case to the viral factors you just picked: emotion, tagging, trending topic.
Social Marketing in Nepal 🇳🇵
Social media is a primary marketing channel for Nepali businesses.
- Facebook: The dominant platform. Used for everything from brand building to direct sales via Messenger. Targeted ads are highly effective.
- Instagram: Hugely popular with the youth. Ideal for visual brands (cafes, fashion) and influencer marketing.
- TikTok: Rapidly growing. Businesses use it for short, engaging, and often viral video content.
- YouTube: Key for video marketing, including product reviews, tutorials, and brand storytelling.
- Viber: More than a messaging app. "Viber Communities" are used by brands like Daraz and Foodmandu to build loyal followings and announce deals.
Nepal's Social Media: Rank the Platforms
Classroom ordering only: no dated ranking dataset is supplied. Actual audience order depends on measure and date.
Assign a rank from 1 (most popular) to 5 (least) for each platform in Nepal.
- ▶️ YouTube
- 🎵 TikTok
- 💬 Viber
Practical Application: A Nepali E-Commerce Store
Example: "Himalayan Handmade"
A store selling Nepali handicrafts online.
- Instagram Strategy: High-quality photos and Reels showing artisans at work. Use Stories for Q&A sessions and behind-the-scenes content. Collaborate with Nepali travel influencers.
- Facebook Strategy: Run targeted ad campaigns for users interested in "handmade goods" and "Nepal travel." Use a Facebook Page as a customer service portal and to post artisan stories.
- Viber Strategy: Create a Viber Community for loyal customers to share exclusive "early bird" access to new products and special discount codes.
🌟 Influencer Marketing: Tiers and Trust
Common tiers (followers)
- Nano: 1K–10K — close, trusted, cheap
- Micro: 10K–100K — niche experts
- Macro: 100K–1M — wide reach
- Mega: 1M+ — celebrities, costly
⚠️ Cautionary case: Fyre Festival (2017)
Top models posted an orange tile promoting a "luxury" festival, mostly without saying they were paid. The event collapsed; the founder was later jailed for fraud.
Rule: always disclose paid posts (#ad, "Paid partnership"). Smaller, honest creators often beat big names on engagement.
Creating on Mobile
Influencer Strategy: Match the Tactic
For "Himalayan Handmade", match each marketing tactic to the most effective platform.
🛍️ What Is Social Commerce?
Social commerce: buying and selling inside social platforms — discovery, product page and checkout without leaving the app.
- Global: Instagram and Facebook Shops, TikTok Shop, live-stream selling (huge in China on Douyin and Taobao Live).
- Nepal: thousands of Instagram and Facebook sellers take orders by DM, confirm on Messenger or Viber, and deliver cash on delivery or via wallet QR.
- Glossier (USA): grew from Emily Weiss's beauty blog Into the Gloss into a brand built on Instagram community and customer feedback.
Social commerce shortens the path: see → tap → buy.
Illustrative In-App Shop
🕶️ Dark Social: The Shares You Can't See
- Dark social = sharing through private channels: Messenger, Viber, WhatsApp, email, copied links.
- Analytics often records these visits as "direct" traffic, so marketers under-count how much word-of-mouth they get.
- The term was coined by journalist Alexis Madrigal in The Atlantic (2012).
- Fixes: share buttons for messaging apps, tagged links (UTM codes), "How did you hear about us?" at checkout.
In Nepal, a Viber family group can sell more than any public post.
Key Takeaways
- 📊 Social marketing is a strategic effort to build a brand, engage a community, and drive sales.
- 🎯 There is no "one-size-fits-all" platform. The best choice depends on your audience, product, and goals (B2B vs. B2C, visual vs. text).
- ⚡ Key features like targeted ads, community-building tools (Groups), and rich media formats (Stories, Rich Pins) are crucial for success.
- 🇳🇵 In Nepal, a multi-platform approach focusing on Facebook, Instagram, and emerging channels like TikTok and Viber is essential for maximum reach.
Exam Practice 📝
Short answer
- What is social marketing? How is it different from traditional advertising?
- List the five steps of the social marketing process.
- What is social commerce?
Long answer
- Explain the social marketing process and the measures used at each step.
- Compare Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn as marketing platforms for businesses in Nepal.
Revise the answers in the full note.
Sources & Media Credits
- Selfie-stick reporter: Toglenn, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons).
- In-app shop mock-up: made for IT204, CC BY 4.0.
- Videos: Explained Hub; Mashable.
- Image 1: source — CC BY-SA 3.0, Toglenn
- Image 2: source — Made for IT204, CC BY 4.0
- Clip 1: source
- Clip 2: source
- Existing course illustrations retained; creator/licence metadata was not supplied. Provenance review pending.
- Ice Bucket clip: August 2014 $14M snapshot; later ALS total was about $115M. Original platform counts are historical, not current benchmarks.
Thank You
Any questions?