Social Media: The Ultimate Trump Card For Successful Product Launches

In a world where owning a car seemed like an unattainable luxury to the common man, Henry Ford shook the auto industry in 1908 with his game-changing assembly line technology that made cars affordable to the millions of ordinary people. Fast forward to the 21^st century, it won’t be astonishing to draw parallels of that with the equally revolutionary impact that social media has had on product launches, enabling companies to reach millions of people at a fraction of earlier costs. In their article ‘Demystifying social media’, Divol et al. (2012) discuss how companies can use social media to lead changes in consumer behaviour at different stages of consumer decision making. Product launches through social media can be influential when customers are at the 'Evaluation' stage. They hasten their movement to the next stage which is buying the product (Figure 1), ensuring greater sales and profitability.  

                  Figure 1: Social media response along the consumer journey ( Divol et al., 2012) 

The authors suggest that marketers should utilize social media to create excitement among their target audience. The practice of building anticipation is not new. After all, who does not remember Apple’s famous stunt of ‘1984 won’t be like 1984’? The difference today is that with the power of social media platforms, companies manage to create buzz on a global level with unprecedented reach. See how customers queue up world over for the latest iPhone or global food chains -

 

                                                      Figure 2: Burger King Queue India. Source: YouTube 

                                                              

Joan Schneider (2015) not only endorses the viewpoint that social media is the future of product launches but also outlines in detail a few other tactics that marketers can adopt to succeed in the market. Remember how product launches used to be about just an event date and associated media coverage? The Internet has brought a seismic shift to how companies launch their products today. Isn’t it such a common practice nowadays to rope in influencers, leak information to reporters, bloggers, and consumers, live-stream launch events worldwide, and reward brand advocates with exclusives? His research has shown that Facebook has already become the second-most used source for new product launch information after TV commercials. According to him, these changes have provided an equal footing to brands of all sizes and industries in reaching consumers. Did you know that Amazon launched its own smartphone called Fire in 2014? No, right? That’s because it failed miserably which Schneider attributed to a lack of spark and integrated social media strategy in its launch. He recommends that brands should couple new launches with rewarding of brand advocates and fans with free giveaways to bolster Word of Mouth (WOM) besides launching hashtag campaigns. Anybody remembers the iconic #ShareACoke campaign?

 

I am sure that you would be familiar with the fastest growing smartphone brand One Plus, and I can even bet that you would be its follower on at least one social media platform, aren’t you? This is unsurprising because One Plus has the most proactive presence on social media through which it not only sustains its huge brand community but also creates frenzied excitement for its new launches. Figures 3, 4 & 5 exemplify the massive hype and speculation that One Plus built for the launch of Nord in July 2020.

                                            Figure 3: One Plus Nord Build-Up. Source: Facebook 

                                            Figure 4: One Plus Nord Build-Up. Source: Instagram  

                                             Figure 5: One Plus Nord Pre-Launch. Source: YouTube  

In 2017, OnePlus had created a pre-launch buzz on Facebook for its OnePlus 5T. Targeting North American males aged 18–35, the brand ran an in-stream video ad, instant articles, and Facebook suggested videos. All the multimedia succeeded in creating an air of mystery around the new product and captivated the attention of potential buyers to drive them to purchase. The campaign was phenomenally successful as it achieved 20-point higher brand awareness and 14% more devices sold amongst audiences exposed to the campaign (Facebook, n.d.). 

To the managers who still feel skeptical about investing in social media due to complexity or uncertain ROI, you are choosing to stick to a horse when you can get a combustion engine!

 

REFERENCES

 

Divol, R., Edelman, D., & Sarrazin, H. (2012). Demystifying social media. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/demystifying-social-media#

Facebook. (n.d.). OnePlus. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/business/success/oneplus

Schneider, J. (2015). 10 Tactics for Launching a Product Using Social Media. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, 2–5.