History of Marketing: Marketing has been evolving ever since the start of production.
Earlier, the companies used to be oriented towards production of goods and used to be focused on maximum production with a little focus on quality.
Slowly, the manufacturing companies starting getting concerned about quality of their products and later with increase in competition, they woke up to the necessity of going to the customer directly for selling.
Thus marketing was born and various marketing strategies evolved.
Different Approaches towards marketing: After the 1980s, organizations started promoting their products with the different customers with the help of advertising and direct communication with the customer.
Social marketing evolved during the 1990s in which various techniques were used in order to attain some target aimed at building a better society.
Difference between Social Marketing and Commercial Marketing: Commercial marketing is focused solely on profits while social marketing is focused entirely on society.
Now, with the evolution of internet and various platforms such as blogs, social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube etc.
various organizations have started using these platforms for marketing themselves with the use of social media marketing.
It helps them to build rapport with the customers by mixing various aspects of marketing like advertisement, direct marketing and publicity.
Conventionally, marketing used to be done with the help of external marketing service providers such as advertisement companies.
These companies used to organize every aspect of advertisement.
This situation has got changed a lot after rise of social media marketing as it helps them to get in touch with the customers directly.
Role of Internet: This type of marketing has got a lot of support from the internet.
This is because the companies can get in touch with numerous potential customers online who can access large information about the products and services of the company on its website.
Further, with the rapid expansion of internet, social media can be accessed by any one who has an internet connection.
Thus, the need for highly priced advertisements was completed by this method helping these companies to save cost, increase effectiveness and increase consumer satisfaction.
A number of companies around the world have used this form of marketing to reap heavy benefits.
Consumers can contact such companies on their discussion forums where they can list their problems, suggestions, complaints etc.
The social media campaigns of companies like Dell Computers and Starbucks have been quite successful in reaching out to their customers.
Starbucks has a presence on various social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and have a blog platform of their own which is MyStarbucks Idea.
Such companies take consumer feedback very easily and are known to have increased customer satisfaction to great levels.
However, there have been certain unsuccessful campaigns as well; such as those by Nestle, Volkswagen and Wal-Mart.
These companies had registered presence on such websites and even had their own blogs as well, but they couldn't connect with their customers.
This is because these companies didn't pay any importance to the feedback given by their respective consumers.