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Social media as a marketing tool for post-academic education: basic social media marketing strategy for professional learning & development

Cloostermans, Joris (2012) Social media as a marketing tool for post-academic education: basic social media marketing strategy for professional learning & development.

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Abstract:This report will propose a basic strategy for Professional Learning & Development for using social media in their marketing activities. The first chapter presents the methodology that was used during this process, including the research questions that were used. These research questions were as follows: 1) What are previous findings in the area of social media marketing? 2) What are competitors doing in the area of social media marketing? 3) In what way do potential customers use social media? Each of these research questions was divided into sub-questions and then answered throughout the report. In chapter 2 research question 1 was answered by performing a literature review. Some important conclusions of this chapter are: • There are different types of social media platforms that can be used for different purposes with respect to marketing. For example blogs can be useful for reaching new influencers or direct marketing, while content communities are more useful for tapping customer creativity. • Twitter and LinkedIn seem to be the two most suitable social networking sites given the target market of PLD. • Mobile internet is becoming more and more popular and it may even become larger than the regular internet. In chapter 3 an external analysis is done to get a better idea of the competitors’ activities in the area of social media marketing. First, a competitor analysis is made and later a trend search is conducted. The competitor analysis concluded that Twitter and LinkedIn are the two most popular platforms with the competitors of PLD. The trend search showed some interesting trends, although they were not directly applicable to PLD’s marketing activities. The answer to the last research question is given by a survey. The design and methodology of this survey is given in chapter 4 and chapter 5 describes the findings of this survey. The design of the survey was based on conclusions of chapters 2 and 3. Striking was that LinkedIn was by far the most popular social media platform under the target market, it was used by almost 90% of the respondents. Also, realistically, around 40% of the target population could be convinced to actively participate in social media activities, which could be used as a general performance indication of the future social media marketing activities. Finally, based on the conclusions of chapters 2, 3 and 5 a basic social media marketing strategy was drawn up. The three primary platforms in this strategy are LinkedIn, Twitter and the website. It is key that these three are built and used well and that they complement each other. Once these primary platforms are in place and are functioning well, secondary platforms such as blogs and RSS-feeds can be introduced to add more possibilities to the social media marketing strategy.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:Industrial Engineering and Management BSc (56994)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/61679
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