Question

For a brand of your own choice, first define its target market and position. Then find out how its social media effort has developed (When did it join Facebook? Twitter? etc.). See if you can also find the way the brand has integrated its traditional media with social media. Any critique? Evaluation?

Answer 1

For this topic let’s discuss “Netflix”.

Netflix has recently become popular with its original media production and loyal following. The target audience for Netflix is middle and upper middle class people across the globe. The demography of audiences that resonate with Netflix subscription are between the ages of 18-39. The average household income ranges above $100,000 per year and these people are often the opinion leaders in their social circle. They also have the tendency to spend more money as their disposable income and live in the urban areas.

Netflix is strongly active on social media. Their Facebook page has over 44 million likes and followers. Similarly in Twitter they have over 4.8 million followers for USA. They joined these social media platforms in 2008. Since then they have used multiple social media pages and profiles to cater to local audiences. For example there are separate Facebook and Twitter pages for UK and other countries.

Netflix has established itself as a competitor for movie industries and television in general. As a result, the traditional branding channels through visual media has been constricted. Netflix advertisements do not appear on the TV. However other media channels such as newspaper, radio etc are still actively used by Netflix. They keep a consistent messaging and promotion strategy across all platforms.

The target audience that Netflix caters to are very familiar with social media and online platforms. Naturally, high engagement activities and viral approach of sharing content has helped Netflix reach its audiences. Their strategy so far has worked very well and may continue to do so. The only place where they can improve is probably creating more localized content. For example, their audiences in Mexico could like some shows that are based on Mexican environment and the language used is Spanish. In their approach to target global audiences, they should not miss out on local opportunities.