Have you ever thought about how marketing strategies can be used to generate a positive impact on society? Social marketing is just that: a powerful tool that seeks to spread ideas and behaviors beneficial to all. In this article we will explore the world of social marketing to discover its transformative potential.
What is Social Marketing?
Social marketing is the use of marketing techniques to disseminate ideas that benefit society as a whole. The intention is that people adopt positive ideas or behaviors and avoid harmful attitudes. In a broad sense, the characteristics of social marketing are similar to those of commercial marketing (although they have clear differences), since both seek to bring about a change in attitude or behavior. Likewise, social marketing can be of great benefit to organizations of all types, considering its great usefulness in generating an audience.
The most important characteristics of social marketing are the following: it is based on a strategy, it pursues an objective, it seeks to improve society, sales – although considered important – are not a priority, it serves to differentiate itself from the competition by providing another point of view and, finally, it includes interactivity.
In this sense, there are 3 types of social marketing:
- Internal Social Marketing: Internal Social Marketing is like when a soccer team motivates each other to win, but in a company. It is the art of inspiring employees to be ambassadors of the company, sharing its culture and values in social networks and everyday life.
- External Social Marketing: These are the advertising campaigns that carry out the strategies that are conducted outwardly to publicize the values and attitudes promoted by the organization. It encourages the involvement of different social actors.
- Interactive Marketing: This type of marketing seeks to stimulate people to take actions that generate changes. The recipient is conceived as an active agent with critical capacity and tools to interact with the organization and give feedback. Social marketing does not neglect the user or client who takes on the cause as his own and considers him as another agent in the campaign.
Utility of Social Marketing
In general terms, these are the social actions that an organization can carry out when generating a strategy of this nature:
- Inform or educate: It consists of carrying out educational programs such as health and hygiene campaigns, nutrition, ecological education, etc.
- Actions that benefit society: The idea is that the greatest number of people carry out a given action during a certain period of time. For example: a solidarity campaign.
- Change harmful habits: Raise awareness so that people abandon some harmful behavior. For example: campaigns against excessive consumption of soft drinks.
- To favor a vulnerable social group: To segment the population so that campaigns are more effective in favor of a specific social group.
As we can see, social marketing can be a great differential for your brand or organization, since it has a positive impact on people in different ways and creates an image of social responsibility. It attracts an audience with common values, encourages cooperation and creates a positive difference with respect to the organization or company that carries it out.
