Social Media as an Integrated Marketing Communication Tool
Integrated Marketing Communications Assessment requirements
Task 2: Course work individual task (60% of the module)
A marketing communications tool evaluation report
You are a Marketing Assistant working in the agency that submitted an integrated marketing plan to Sheffield City Council to increase tourism to the city.
Your Account Director has asked you to produce a written report which critically evaluates one of the marketing communications tools that you included in your outline integrated marketing communications plan for Sheffield City Council. You can choose one from the list of tools below:
Advertising, public relations, sponsorship, direct marketing, personal selling, sales promotions, exhibitions, mobile or digital communications, social media
This report should demonstrate your ability to investigate and evaluate integrated marketing communications academic concepts, theories and models as well as current industry perspectives and how this is applicable in practice as part of your proposed integrated marketing communications plan to raise the profile of Sheffield as a tourism destination to result in increased visitor numbers.
Your report should include:
A clear introduction (what is your report about?)
An understanding of how your chosen marketing tool is defined in IMC
A critical evaluation of your chosen marketing communications tool’s strengths and any associated weaknesses or limitations
Recommendations on how the success of your chosen marketing communications tool should be measured.
A critical evaluation of why having controls in place for your chosen marketing communications tool (i.e.) budgets and schedules) is important to your client (Sheffield city council)
A conclusion: your justified recommendations for the future development of the chosen marketing tool (how could it evolve in the future to raise visitor numbers to Sheffield?)
Appendices (please ensure all appendices are referenced in your main report and that key content is not buried in the appendices).
References (please note this is not a bibliography, i.e. everything you have read, but a list of all the references you have cited in the report).
The report should be 2,500 words (+/-10%) excluding appendices, diagrams and tables and include a.
Cover page which includes a report title, your full student number, student ID and seminar tutor name, total word count (this page is excluded from word count)
Contents page (this page is excluded from word count)
Report style numbering system (e.g. Page 1 of X)
Appendices when necessary (please do not bury content in the appendix that is part of the assessment criteria)
Main headings to separate out key sections
Sub-headings to separate out key sub-sections
Bullet points for lists
References list using the APA 6* referencing system (excluded from word count).
Please note all sources must be properly referenced in the references list using the APA referencing system, the report must include citations.
Further information on referencing is available on the Library Gateway ind out about APA referencing and the range of apps and online tools for quick and easier referencing at https://libguides(dot)shu(dot)ac(dot)uk/referencing.
It is not acceptable at this level of academic study to reference un-trusted sources such as Wikipedia, MarketingTeacher.com, QuickMBA.com, Tutor2u or similar websites.
Submission guidance and deadlines
Your individual written report should be submitted electronically through the submission point under Assessment on the Integrated Marketing Communications Blackboard site and submitted once through Turnitin week by the deadline Friday 7 May 2021 3pm (GMT)
If you submit work after an assessment deadline without an authorised extension but within 24 hours (excluding the weekend period) of the original submission time you will receive either a capped mark at the minimum pass mark or the full uncapped mark for your work, whichever is the lower. If you submit work after this period you will not receive a mark for your work but you will receive feedback comments from your tutor.
Marketing Communications Tool Evaluation Report
Student’s Name
University Affiliation
Course Code and Name
Instructor’s Name
Due Date
Marketing Communications Tool Evaluation Report
Introduction
The Sheffield Music Festival is the focus of this integrated marketing campaign, aimed at attracting more people’s attention and changing the stereotype of Sheffield City, increasing its tourism appeal among people both locally and internationally. As determined earlier, the music festival was seen as the ideal platform to improve Sheffield’s economy, in addition to improving its tourist appeal. The determination made implied that the music economy will comprise high traffic for live music, attract famous music bands and fashion brands, and boost the use of the city’s industrial parks and creativity from the community. The parks and creative community will include industrial music-themed restaurants, an industrial museum, an industrial clothing store, and a music studio. In turn, urban economic development is the objective of the music festival that will, in turn, foster a change in the city’s image. To allow for successful turnout and brand image of the Sheffield Music Festival, the Never Say Never organization will utilize social media as the primary integrated marketing communication tool, spearheaded by Kingsley, who is responsible for marketing communication strategies. This report’s objectives are to demonstrate to Sheffield City Council how social media can be used to promote tourism in the city, to provide a critical assessment of social media in terms of its advantages and disadvantages, to suggest methods for gauging the effectiveness of social media use, and to develop a critical analysis of why Sheffield City Council should have controls like budgets and schedules in place.
Social Media as an Integrated Marketing Communication Tool
An integrated marketing communications (IMC) tool is defined as the process of planning that allows an organization’s brand or product is accessible to the target audience or consumer (Kushwaha et al., 2020). Moreover, the IMC process is consistent and relevant to the product and the prospective customers. Additionally, it is important to include the necessary stakeholders within the IMC, such as the stakeholders, the channels, the content, and the results. This tool is important as it offers a methodological approach to guiding communication and marketing approaches from the marketing channels chosen. The IMC process comprises the identification of potential clients through behavioural information, the determination of the economic value of the clients, the creation and dissemination of messages and incentives, the estimation of the return on investment (ROI), and the incorporation of controls such as budget, evaluations, and schedule to improve the product’s viability (Kushwaha et al., 2020). Following the evaluation of Sheffield City, the identified clients, through the analysis of behavioral data, were found to be students since the city is a university town with a high education level. Furthermore, the town’s continuous improvement of sports and industrial, and cultural infrastructure was seen as a potential economic value. Therefore, due to the town’s need to promote itself as a youthful area, the use of social media as the IMC tool was deemed as the best fit for the purpose.
Social media is defined as the platform used for interactions between people where they may share, create, and exchange information and thoughts through virtual spaces and networks. The main social media networks in this day and age are Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Social media can be used as a key IMC tool for three reasons:
* Clients freely and consciously opt to communicate and engage with the organization, along with their products and services.
* The organization can easily optimize the message according to specific target audiences for its products, services, and brand.
* Social media platforms allow for a two-way communication channel, creating a multiplier effect.
A strong emphasis should be placed on the first component. In traditional marketing, marketers cannot assess how engaged customers are with a brand when they interact with it (Kushwaha et al., 2020). The marketer can thus be certain they have an engaged target that can be converted into a client if the customer shows up and expresses interest. Secondly, Das (2021) suggests that social media may offer channels for a company, its brand, or its goods to naturally engage with customers and other consumers. Therefore, regardless of whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, it’s owned by the company. This may lead them to edit their material in order to convey more complex or wide-ranging concepts. The use of social networks allows businesses and brands to communicate in the way that suits them, such as through long-form narratives, video, and photography, in comparison to TV, radio, and even print media, which are limited by time and space. Brands can also be themselves on social media because they know most people follow them for a variety of reasons.
Social media also helps the client by giving them a way to communicate directly with the company or brand. According to Shankar et al. (2022), one of the social networks emerging benefits is that companies are using them as a forum to handle customer service, monitoring reviews and complaints in real-time to handle issues. However, it need not be restricted to bad service and current customers. Instead, potential customers may use social media to submit inquiries and receive feedback from current customers. Engaged and dedicated consumers also create content besides the intended organizational or brand image.
Social Media Strengths and Weaknesses
Before critical evaluation of social media as an IMC tool, in terms of strengths and weaknesses, it is important to carry out a SWOT analysis of the tourist image required of Sheffield City to successfully promote the music festival. The table below shows the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis of Sheffield City as a tourist destination.
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Strengths
1. Sheffield is listed as the 26th best tourist city in the UK, providing a good reputation for enhancing the tourism level.
2. The Tram Festival, or the World Snooker Championship, has a certain industrial foundation and popularity.
3. Get policy support from relevant local authorities in Sheffield.
Weaknesses
1. The city council’s £280,000 marketing communications budget is too low.
2. As a former industrial area, Sheffield is transforming the tourism industry poorly and is difficult.
3. Lack of high-quality catering, tourist attractions, and basic tourism infrastructure.
Opportunities
1. The renovation plan for the conference trade facilities has been preliminarily established.
2. Sheffield’s industrial heritage and its reputation as a sports city are conducive to promoting tourism development.
3. Close cooperation with relevant private sector partners can improve the success rate of tourism development.
Threats
1. Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, and other cities have more natural advantages in developing tourism than Sheffield.
2. The investment in tourism is low, far below the investment level of its competitors.
3. Sheffield lacks efforts in marketing communication and has low public awareness.
As seen from the above table, Sheffield City has a good reputation for enhancing the tourism level, showing that the brand image is positive. The positivity of brand image is important as it may make it easier to engage with clients. Furthermore, the city already has a popular industrial foundation and popularity gained from the tram festival and the World Snooker Championship, meaning loyal supporters are accessible. Here, the use of word-of-mouth marketing may be essential, even on social media, to attract more consumers to the music festival due to the previous experiences of repeat tourists (Arasli et al., 2021). However, the major drawback associated with the city is its relatively low marketing communications budget, which requires extensive prioritization to allow for a successful social media campaign and return on investment (ROI). Therefore, from the SWOT analysis conducted, using social media as the marketing communication tool is viable due to the already burgeoning reputation of the city and the low budget of the marketing communications campaign.
Advantages of Social Media as an IMC Tool
The most important factor associated with social media is its extensive reach. According to statistics, there are more than 3 billion users of social media globally, representing more than 45% of the world’s total population (Li et al., 2021). Moreover, social media platforms represent a network with the highest internet usage, whereby an average user spends more than 2 h...