How often do you get innovations to events via various social medias, be it Facebook, Twitter or even blogs. I am assuming quite a lot, this is because the day’s traditional media for the use of marketing events has gone, and the technological revolution that social mediums is upon us. Xiang and Gretzel (2010) identify social mediums as a form of consumer-generated content; these can include blogs, social networks and other consumer sharing websites. However is this form of marketing beneficial to the events industry?
Zarrella (2009) would suggest that using social medias for marketing enables event companies to produce whatever they want at a fraction of the cost of traditional mediums such as newspapers and television. Stelzner (2011) expands on this work, suggesting that social medias increase the chance of developing relationships with other businesses which would result in improved communications and contacts. Stelzner’s research also acknowledges the main contributors of social mediums, detecting social networking and blogs are the most influential forms available. For these reasons it is clear that social medias are integral for event companies to promote their upcoming occasions. It is proven to be a cheap resource which has the potential to be accessed by a large consumer market. Hodge (2010) develops this theory insinuating that social medias allow some consumers who would not normally have access to information about certain events to gain a greater awareness of what is happening. Hodge suggests that this is due to the unity of social medias which can result in increased brand awareness for an event. This all sounds very positive, surely there are no drawbacks?
Zarrella (2009) highlights how social medias are integral for small businesses to develop brand awareness, however he also acknowledges the flip side of this argument detecting that bigger brands can be damaged via social networking sights. Zarrella (2009) mentions how two Dominoes employees defiled food within the company and uploaded it onto Youtube, which obviously had a negative impact on the brand. Das (2009) also indicates that social medias have the potential to be very time-consuming as they have to be regularly updated in order to keep the consumer’s interest. The work found by PsPrint.com (n.d.) would support Das and build upon it, suggesting that in order to obtain a successful social media campaign it takes time and the results will be delayed due to the expected time it takes to construct brand loyalty and relationships.
Overall it is clear that to be innovative in a very interchangeable industry that you have to keep up with modern developments, at the moment this applies to social medias especially in relation to marketing. It provides event companies a chance to expand their brand awareness and broadcast information about upcoming events in a cheap versatile manner. However while social media might be ideal for smaller companies it can have potential downfalls for larger ones as Xiang and Gretzel (2010) highlight that it is a consumer generated, which enables anything to be written about a company be it positive or negative. So my advice would be yes social medias can be instrumental for events companies however do not expect results overnight and be prepared to keep your content fresh which might end up being rather time-consuming.
Das, N. (2009, February 26). The Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Networking. Retrieved January 8, 2010, from http://www.mytripledub.com/blog/romance-relationships/ advantages-and-disadvantages-social-networking
Hodge, N. (2010). Care and Share. Financial Management, 20(4). Pg. 21–23.
PsPrint.com (n.d.) Social Media Marketing Pros and Cons – Resources. [online] Available at: http://www.psprint.com/resources/small-business-marketing/general-small-marketing/social-media.php [Accessed: 14 Dec 2012].
Stelzner, M. A. (2011). Social media marketing industry report. How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses. Online-Dokument. URL: http://www. socialmediaexaminer. com/SocialMediaMarketingReport2011. pdf.
Xiang, Z., & Gretzel, U. (2010). Role of social media in online travel information search. Tourism Management, 31(2), 179-188.
Zarrella, D. (2009). The social media marketing book. O’Reilly Media.
Understanding Event Operations 