Analysis of Marketing Strategies in the Social Media: Facebook Case Analysis

The past decade has witnessed an increase in the development of complex, multifarious, and intensified interactions between businesses and their customers through social media. Social media has now become an important tool to support this engagement and enable these businesses to promote their products and services and be able to increase their clientele.

However, for organisations to be able to achieve this, marketing strategies in social media, particularly looking at Facebook, have become increasingly crucial. Facebook is a dominant social-networking site, with an audience of approximately three billion monthly active users as of January 2023.?

Furthermore, as marketers see more value in social media marketing, advertisers are increasing their sequential ad spend in social by 25%, with strategies such as Sponsored Stories and Facebook ads leading to an uptick in spending across the site.

Facebook has successfully integrated its marketing activities to achieve superior results and maintain its position as the premier social networking site

The article “Analysis of Marketing Strategies in the Social Media: Facebook Case Analysis,” written by Etienne Musonera and J. Michael Weber and published in 2018 for the Journal of Management Development and Competitiveness, analyses the marketing strategies in the social media in general with a focus on Facebook from its inception to now.

However, this critical review will provide insight into the case analysis of Facebook marketing strategies in social media to understand how the social media giant has been able to maintain its market position and continue to grow its user base through its marketing strategies.

The article begins with an introduction to the importance of social media marketing and the role of Facebook in the social media space.

The authors conducted an industry analysis using Michael Porter's Five Forces and advised on alternative tactics that are consistent with Facebook's mission, goals, and objectives.

As a result, the authors highlighted some of the key strengths and weaknesses of Facebook’s marketing strategies, as well as discussed the opportunities and threats facing the organisation in the dynamic world of social media marketing.

One of the strengths of Facebook identified by the authors is its ability to target specific demographics, behaviours, and interests through its advertising platform. They added that this form of targeted advertising has been vital in helping organisations reach their target audience effectively, ensuring they meet their marketing objectives.

However, the authors touched on some weaknesses of Facebook’s marketing strategies, highlighting the decreased organic reach of business pages which has made it challenging for businesses to reach their target audience without the need to spend on advertising.

Furthermore, in terms of opportunities, the authors analysis identified the potentials of video content and influencer marketing as ways to which organisations can reach a larger audience and be able to increase their brand awareness.

In addition, the analysis by the authors identified competitions, changing algorithms and ad blockers as potential threats to Facebook’s marketing strategies and highlights the importance of them staying up to date with the current trends and strategies in the social media market to have a competitive edge among other social media platforms.

The analysis conducted by the authors provided further recommendations and strategic alternatives which highlight the fact that Facebook should search for alternative revenue streams as they seem to be extremely dependent on advertising revenue in their current business model. They suggested that this may be achieved by the acquisition of products or companies outside of their portfolio, making them less dependent on advertising as this could be susceptible to downturns.

In conclusion, the article “Analysis of Marketing Strategies in the Social Media: Facebook Case Analysis” written by Etienne Musonera and J. Michael Weber provides a comprehensive analysis of Facebook’s marketing strategies in the social media. I believe that in light of the current privacy concerns, the authors should have focused more on Facebook’s handling of user data as it has been under scrutiny in recent years, causing many businesses and users to become cautious on the platform which potentially limits marketing campaigns.

However, the insightful analysis conducted by the authors provides a well-written and comprehensive foundation for brands, entrepreneurs and other social media platforms looking to either learn or adopt the social media marketing strategies used by Facebook.

Citation:

Musonera, E., & Weber, J. M. (2018). Analysis of marketing strategies in the Social Media: Facebook case analysis. Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.33423/jmdc.v12i1.1406?