SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IN EMERGING MARKETS

Abstract

Globalization has transformed the marketing field from traditional marketing media to social marketing media because of its numerous roles of reaching more customers at the least cost. Traditional marketing communicates with customers through dedicated media channels like television, radio, newspaper, magazine, but the failure of traditional marketing channels to yield significant returns on investment is attributed to many reasons including lack of interactive engagement between the customers and the brand. Social media appeared as the solution to the letdown of traditional marketing, social media are online platforms that facilitate social conversation between social agents regardless of the geography while social media marketing is the promotion of products and services through social media platform. Thus, considering its ability to penetrate across national boundaries without any stoppage, this study found it worthwhile to investigate social media marketing in emerging markets using social media marketing platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Whatsapp, LinkedIn, et cetera. The study adopted purposive and systematic sampling technique to ensure that mature adults who fall within the age of 18 and 65 with deep knowledge of social media marketing in organizations in emerging economies are involved in the study through a standard questionnaire which was designed for such purpose. Classical regression model was adopted for the analytical findings, the study concluded that social media activity positively affect brand success in emerging economies. In other words, there is a direct and positive relationship between social media activity and success of an organization's brand in the market. It is recommended that Organization should design effective social media marketing strategy in order to increase its brand engagement and create more customer delights