IMC and Social Media: Two- Way Communication

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) ensures that all forms of communications and messages are carefully linked together. IMC focuses on integrating all the promotional tools so that they work together in harmony, which can also be focused on as multi media marketing. 

Revising the more original approaches to IMC, marketers sent their integrated messages to prospects and customer through various media forms they controlled e.g. radio, television, emails etc. However, with 3.80 billion social media users on a variety of different social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc (wearesocial), the importance of two-way communication, and tackling that market in order to help improve upon a larger communication and message exposure has never been more important. Marketers need to correct their more traditional IMC approaches, and cater towards this increasing access to information in order to compete in the market and against competitors. 

A lot of study has gone into IMC plans and how to communicate messages to consumers, and although traditional methods of IMC advertising, like newspaper and magazine ads, direct mail, television commercials, free samples, coupons and more are still utilised to this day, social media allows a business to share information about products, sales, and deals with many consumers quickly and efficiently. This also helps to reach many businesses goals and objectives relating to increasing their exposure to as many people as possible.

Many consumers do a lot of their product/ brand searching through social media channels in this current time. Speaking for myself, not even 45 minutes ago I searched up a business on Instagram to see if they sold a particular product I was seeking. In 5 minutes, I was able to locate the product I desired, compared prices with competitors, and ordered the product from their establishment because I was able to conclude that they offered the best product to suit my needs, convenience of service was admirable and price was advantageous to me. I can track my order as I’m having the product delivered to my residing address, and communicate directly to the company through a private chat, email or phone number as advertised on their social media page if I have any issues or inquires. 

For businesses, social media offers an effective approach to increase communication and engagement with consumers, which is something marketers really need to consider when implementing or altering IMC processes to their businesses.  

What are your thoughts on this? Do you believe social media has the power to positively influence IMC processes? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below 🙂