Social Marketing: How to Better Society
Social marketing? Don’t you mean social media marketing? Believe it or not, but there is a huge difference between social marketing and social media marketing. In my previous articles I have discussed the benefits of using social media in a marketing strategy, but today I want to explain how social marketing is another great marketing tactic. Let’s start by defining by social marketing is. NSMC gives a detailed explanation of what social marketing is, they defined it as..
“..an approach used to develop activities aimed at changing or maintaining people’s behaviour for the benefit of individuals and society as a whole.”
Essentially social marketing is a tactic done by a non-profit or individuals to better society.
Social marketing is a six-step process, when using social marketing is best to ensure you understand your target audience and their perception of the issue being presented through social marketing.
A recent example of social marketing was the #MeToo movement. In case you have not been on a social media platform in the past eighteen months, the #MeToo movement was started when Tarana Burke, a social activist, tweeted the following, for women to write #MeToo on their social media to show the magnitude of sexual assault among women. The #MeToo movement came in the light of the sexual-abuse allegations against many powerful men such as Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby, Larry Nassar, and some may argue that our current US president has ties to the movement.
October 2018, Makers reported over 19 million women posted #MeToo on their social media, and that number has only grown since then. The #MeToo movement worked so well because it has provided solidarity among sexual assault survivors and an opportunity to speak out against on social media platforms. Also, the New York Times reported that the #MeToo movement has brought down over two hundred powerful men who have sexual assault allegation against them, and half of their replacements are women.
The #MeToo movement has done its job by creating awareness of sexual abuse among women. CNN explained that the National Association of Women is presenting that society takes this social campaign and turn it into social change, they will do this by launching a new campaign #IWillSpeakUp, targeting men to step up and take responsibility.
I believe the #IWillSpeakUp has the potential to be as successful as the #MeToo movement. The #MeToo movement worked so well because it targeted a specific segment of people with a common issue in society.
Going along with the #MeToo movement, another important cause in society that many are not aware of is the prevalence of human trafficking in the United States. Like the #MeToo movement, human trafficking has a similar strategy, it has the #enditmovement, and encourages people to post a picture on social media with a red ‘X.’ This movement could additionally be promoted by targeting the correct segment of people to create awareness, in hopes that awareness of how many people are trafficked and how it happens, would decrease the amount of people trapped in human trafficking situations
Social marketing is beneficial to society, it creates awareness of an issue to society to change how people behave.