Social Media Controversy

“Social media is a powerful tool for reaching your audience at a relatively low cost, however, it takes savvy and practice to run a successful social media campaign” (Gartenstein 2018). In other words, a social media campaign can either make or break a company’s ability to meet its objectives. Therefore, it is important for companies investing in social media campaigns to thoroughly research its market and fully develop a marketing strategy that meet its needs. For example, “in its ongoing effort to redefine popular beauty standards, Dove made a controversial move to reshape its shampoo bottles to reflect different body types” (DeMers 2017). Even though Dove had not intended to be controversial, women believed that Dove was, in fact, defining

In addition, the coffee mogul offers free giveaways as well as provides a collaborative environment for its growing consumer base. Starbuck’s socal media marketing campaign increased brand awareness while Dove’s social media marketing campains attempted to humanize the brand. Increasing brand awareness allows companies “to reach new and highly targeted potentional customers” while humanizing the brand provides companies with “the ability to create a real human connectiion” (Newberry 2018). As you can see, both companies utilized social media to accomplish two different objectives. Starbucks utilized social media to promote its various products like: coffee, food, merchandise, and hand-crafted beverages. Introducing the free giveawsys allowed them to gain new customers and market new products. Dove, on the other hand, tried to utilize social media to make a statement that did not bode well with female consumers. If Dove wants to humanize its brand, the company needs to focus on its current customers and how the products benefit them. Dove’s attempt to challenge the current definition of beauty is admirable, but the marketing campagin’s poor design and execution ended disastrously. If companies want to utilize social media effectively, they need to make sure that the end result is worth the risk (DeMers 2017) (Pozin 2014) (Newberry 2018) (Starbucks Company Profile