What role does a company’s communication play in day-to-day
operations? Argenti, Howell, and Beck
argue in MIT Sloan Management Review that “strategic communication is
inextricably linked to corporate strategy.”( http://bit.ly/1aWvfVH)
With the continuing social media revolution and continuing innovations in how
we speak and communicate with each other, company’s need to make sure strategic
use of these new communication tools is effectively used and really become a
part of their overall strategy.
When developing an IMC program, every element needs to align
and create a specific message that best communicates a company’s branding
message and selling point. Social media
is merely a new tool that needs to fit in and be used in an innovative fashion
in order to get the most out of every opportunity. Erik Qualman diagrams several ideal ways
that an organization can structure their social media communications in the
most ideal manner. Qualman’s conclusions
indicate that “the more ingrained social media was within a company, the closer
it came to an ideal structure…it was organized communication.” (Qualman, 2013, pp. 231-232) Each social media communication model has its
pros and cons but one in which the entire organization is involved with a
central idea of what and how they should be communicating over social media provides
the best way to integrate into an organization’s overall strategy.
Aligning these social media channels with other IMC elements
can be a challenge but one that is quickly becoming a regular facet within the
marketing realm. We’ve just come out of
the biggest advertising event of the year: the Super Bowl. Every year, millions are spent on 30-second
ad buys in the hopes that it will produce a conversation and viral Internet
attention that will increase brand exposure.
More and more, however, companies seem to be artificially enhancing
media exposure through social media channels to extend those multi-million ad
buys far beyond what they could have gotten a decade ago. The above Scarlett Johansson ad for
Sodastream was leaked earlier as a banned ad due to an innocuous, easily edited
line about Coke and Pepsi but because they submitted this one first, it gained
a bit of notoriety and they were able to pump out a few extra days of
Sodastream mentions through viral social media mentions.
The above 30 second ad for the new Amazing Spider-Man movie
also played during the big game but conversation about the movie extended far
beyond its initial showing. Sony wisely
placed a Spider-Man hashtag at the end of the ad extending the conversation for
the movie over to Twitter. There, a new
nearly four minute advertisement with even more footage for the movie was
released on the official Sony Youtube channel.
Sodastream and Sony used smart traditional advertising buys
and extended their message out through other communication channels over the
biggest advertising day of the year.
These are just two examples from the day that used a smart IMC plan to
integrate social media across their corporate strategy and create an alignment
between each, separate part.
Works Cited
Qualman, E. (2013). Socialnomics: How Social Media
Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.
