63.1% of the Jamaican population, or more than 1.8 million citizens, used Facebook in 2021 (NapoleonCat, 2021). Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, new users utilized social networks to follow current affairs. New 200,000 Facebook users in 2021 over the previous year (Internet World Statistics, 2021) demonstrate its increasing popularity. Cambridge Dictionary (2022) defines social media marketing as “the methods for advertising products using the internet by attracting the interest of groups.” Meanwhile, a new user is “a person who is initiating their first session on a social platform.”
National lockdowns have robbed people of the opportunity to go to shopping malls, while social distancing has caused more people to rely on online shopping (Dastgeer & Thapaliya, 2022). Taking advantage of the tremendous demand for Internet services, social media advertisers began to utilize e-commerce more frequently in Jamaica. This essay explores three ways social media marketing connects advertisers with their target audience: brand influencers, grocery giveaways, and pop quizzes.
Jamaican advertisers used Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter because citizens found them accessible and easy to use. For example, 17% of the entire population was registered on Instagram at the beginning of 2022 (Kemp, 2022). Advertisers pay influencers, active users with many followers, by buying ads in Instagram stories to promote their brands (Dastgeer & Thapaliya, 2022). Their messages about influencer’s utilized products become popular among followers, making a new user following his favorite star a victim of marketing.
Jamaican businesses contact influencers to make giveaways of their products. It requires new users to follow an influencer and sponsor, raising public awareness about the brand while the online shop distributes all gifts for free (Pujiyono & Dewi, 2020). Additionally, advertisers carefully choose social networks for interaction with customers. For example, Facebook usually allows users to choose products for significantly lower prices, with 46% of ads reach (Kemp, 2022).
The pop quiz is a technique for attracting more consumers and for lead generation, stimulating customers’ interest in the product. Riddle (2022) found that 81.5% of all users complete the quizzes. Moreover, visitors stay four times longer on pages with pop-up quizzes. In Jamaica, it helps build consumer loyalty to the brand by interacting more with customers.
To conclude, social media marketing is essential for connecting these users and promoting products based on their preferences using one click. Advertisers in Jamaica should constantly work on marketing strategies to keep up with the world’s leading brands.
References
Cambridge Dictionary. (2022).
Dastgeer, S., & Thapaliya, R. (2022). Twitter networks during the global COVID-19 pandemic: Online networking at the time of physical “social distancing.” Southwestern Mass Communication Journal, 37(2), 1–17. Web.
NapoleonCat. (2022). Social media users in Jamaica at the end of 2021.
Kemp, S. (2022). Digital 2022: Jamaica. Data Reportal.
Internet World Statistics. (2021). Web.
Pujiyono & Dewi. (2020). Online trade marketing techniques through giveaway as one of the guise of fraud. Jurnal Hukum Volkgeist, 5(1), 88–93.
Riddle. (2022). Why use quizzes to collect leads?