Unit 13: Social Media & Personal Selling is our LAST unit of the semester — can you believe it? We’ve learned a lot about Marketing this semester, and there is still so much to learn. I hope that by now, you’ve built a foundation of concepts that will help you as you continue your studies in marketing and in business management. If neither of those fields are your major or planned career path, that’s okay! Understanding marketing will also make you a more informed consumer, and that applies to all of us!
In this unit, we’ll learn about how selling directly plays into the marketing environment. Salespeople exist in all forms: on the retail “floor” at Old Navy, employees might help sell you a pair of jeans by making a recommendation or highlighting the features; an employee for the New York Knicks might be charged with selling tickets to individual games or season tickets to businesses; a MaryKay makeup representative might sell by inviting friends over for “sales parties” or by using social media marketing to promote their products; the list goes on.
We’ll focus on personal selling this week, which is a purchase situation involving a personal, paid-for communication between two people in an attempt to influence each other. There is also a quick video in this unit’s course materials folder which will explain personal selling a bit more.
We will also discuss social media marketing in which companies use platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter to get the word out about their products or services and/or tap on influencers to showcase the brand attributes they’d like to highlight.
By the end of this unit, you should be able to:
- Explain integrated marketing communication (IMC) and its connection to the organization’s marketing strategy
- Discuss how to develop effective messaging for marketing communications
- Explain factors to consider when selecting marketing communication methods to execute the strategy
- Describe common methods of marketing communication, their advantages and disadvantages
In order to successfully complete this unit, you’ll need to do the following:
1. Read this Open Educational Resource (free to access): the Personal Selling1 segment of Module 13: Promotion: Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) which we read in Unit 12.
You do not need to complete the assignments or questions at the end of this resource. Please use the links on our Course Schedule to learn more and to complete the assignments for this week.
2. Read this Open Educational Resource (free to access): the Social Media Marketing2 segment of Module 14: The Marketing Mix.
3. Read this article from Investopedia3 about Multi-level Marketing.
4. Watch this video from Wahoo Digital4 (embedded below; ignore the sales pitch at the very end) about what the benefits and goals of Social Media Marketing are.
5. In lieu of a lecture for this unit, we will be watching a feature film called The Joneses which aligns with this unit’s course materials. We will not meet for a live class session; instead, students should use class time to watch the film here for free. Students do not need to create an account — the link should lead directly to the film. Please note: this film is rated R — please be conscious of this as you determine when and where to watch this film. There is some explicit content.
Sources:
1CC LICENSED CONTENT, ORIGINAL Revision and adaptation. Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
2CC LICENSED CONTENT, ORIGINAL Revision and adaptation. Authored by: Linda Williams and Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution
3Wuhoo Digital on YouTube: What is Social Media Marketing in 2 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m45nVsvvEY
4Tarver, Evan; Drury, Amy; Rohrs Schmitt, Kirsten for Investopedia: Multilevel Marketing (MLM). https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/multi-level-marketing.asp
