Question

Businesses both large and small are flocking to social media platforms to engage consumers in conversations and also to drive sales through deals and coupons. Small businesses have found that social media and the Internet help them to level the playing field. They can foster closer relationships with clients and identify potential customers. Flirty Cupcakes owner Tiffany Kurtz says that Facebook and Twitter greatly helped her with product innovation, market expansion, and customer service. Many other entrepreneurs are using social media to launch and expand their businesses.

Read the article, "9 Businesses that Social Media Built (Links to an external site.)."

Using the Internet, search for small businesses that have used social media to start a business or expand their market share. Select four businesses to study. Analyze their use of social media. What do they have in common? When these companies were first launched, most of them probably needed to borrow money to get started. How might these companies have described the social media potential in writing a proposal seeking funding? In which of the proposal components would this information be best placed? In an e-mail or memo to your instructor, describe briefly the four companies you selected. Then, for one company write a portion of the proposal in which the entrepreneur explains how he or she plans to use social media to promote the business. How much time do you think the entrepreneur would need to devote to social media weekly? What platforms would be most useful?

Submission Guidelines: Submissions should be turned in on a Word document, be at least 250-words, and properly cite any outside sources used.

Answer 1

There are 4 brands which has expanded their business through social media. All these brands serve beverages and that is what makes them similar in nature.

Maes Beer- The growth of the Maes beer range soon contributed to the widening of its distribution network, and the firm distributed its beers to more than 20 local cafés by the mid-1920s. Trying to increase their market share, Maes Brewery realized they had something else to do. They gave everyone with the last name 'Maes' a free barrel of their beer on one condition ... they had to share it with 20 of their nearest friends. More than 7,000 users on Facebook changed their last names into Maes. In one day, Maes Beer got over 75,000 Facebook likes ... and in six weeks, 500,000 visits to their Facebook account.

Heineken- Heineken Lager Beer’s heritage launched in year 1873. Heineken has invested heavily in experiential marketing to communicate on a whole new, more complex stage – the level of interactions – with their customers. A smart decision, I think, because it is no secret that interactions are constantly used by people to describe themselves through social media platforms. Facebook is Heineken's most popular social media platform, with an impressive number of more than 20 million Likes.

Threshers- Threshers group ltd. was established in 1898. A pure error may also generate tremendous social buzz. Threshers began to notice a loss after sending a sales voucher to its customers for 40 percent off. The business later came out publicly to say it was "accidentally" given out and that the sales coupon was for manufacturers only to be used. This naturally made the frenzy bigger and made Threshers quite the local buzz. This is an example of lack of marketing strategy and not providing adequate use of it.

Red Bull- Red bull is an energy drink established in 1987. It participates actively in all promotional activities related to digital marketing and knows the type of audience on each Social Platform. Red Bull is the brand with 43 million Facebook Shares, 1.99 million Twitter Subscribers, 3 million Instagram followers and 4.7 million Google+ followers.

Most advertising on social media is cheaper than conventional advertisements, so you don't need to spend a lot of money to attract more users, expand your market, and grow your brand. In order to promote the brand name the company must adopt a particular practice so that large number of people would get to know about the product and the company gets benefits from the same.

For the development of the company it is necessary that the company devote maximum amount of time but which is quite not possible for which is advisable that the company should make a team or department which is devoted to only social media marketing and the members should be well qualified in such dealing. The platforms like Facebook, twitter, Instagram are most reliable and effective in use.