Data Collection Strategy to Expand Digital Marketing

Question: Discuss about the Data Collection Strategy to Expand Digital Marketing. Answer: Introduction: Conducting business in an ethical manner is the crux of success of any business organization particularly for the outbound interaction such as marketing and sales. In todays world the corporates are very high on the code of conduct with regards the professional ethics. Violation of the same is considered to be an unacceptable act. The fact that ethics play a very important role while using social media for the purpose of marketing cannot be ignored specifically with regards usage of personal information in a diplomatic manner (Gutierrez, 2013). This also concerns with regards the use of social media for marketing purpose where it is very difficult to decide upon relevancy and an odd creepy branding proposition. Social media marketing is one of the optimistic steps that the corporates undertake to reach the end consumers. It helps to understand the tastes and desires of the customers in the actual sense. The professional can easily gain an insight into what the consumers demand for, what are their inclinations and thus narrow down the list of the prospective customers. Social media marketing thus helps to find them the right audience that would cater to their ads. But the same would be successful only if used in an ethical manner. Thus it can be coined as ethical marketing wherein there is less usage of marketing strategies and more of philosophy. Using the social media marketing in an ethical manner helps to develop a sense of trust within the customers. Thus if the details portrayed in an advertisement is true in all sense then it has a long lasting impact on the success of the company and also the endorser. Thus it would led the consumers feel that the company is not cheating upon them which would in turn help the company launch any new product also in this competitive market (Marketing-Schools.org 2012). However it is not possible to ask a company to always behave in an ethical manner which using the social media for marketing purposes. They are seen to adhere to ethical aspects in one way of marketing but at the same time behave unethically for the other. Thus the social media marketing although should be conducted in an ethical manner yet there are situations which many a times forces the corporates to take the other route as well. The data generated by the social media are in huge chunks, so much that it at times gives birth to various ethical tensions. The information disseminated via the social media spreads very fast with regard the volume and the number of users or readers, there always is an anxiety with regards collection of the data and the ethical aspect of using the same in the social media. Even though social media is a very attractive and successful source of data yet he same is coupled with various ethical challenges as well such as privacy issues and obtaining permission from the person whose data is being utilised. Even though data is collected from informed sources, storage is another issue and this also gives rise to various ethical tensions. Such as the government which is not a trusted entity when it comes to storing the personal information of its citizens safely. People generally do not trust the private entities as they think that they store data only for making money and thus may even misuse the same for the same purpose (House of Commons, Science and Technology. 2014). But the same is not true. There is ethical tension for collecting, storing the data for social media campaigns in the government sector as well. The proper procedure of collecting, storing and handling the user data for social media campaigns can be divided into three main phases i.e. before, after and during. Collection of data is what comprises of the first phase of the social media campaign. The target audience has to be decided and data should be collected after obtaining consent from them via various social media tweets and sites. Conducting of interviews and surveys are also means of collecting data for social media campaign. Further collect data in clusters (Bowden, 2014). Further to this, the data collected for the social media campaigns are generally personal information of the models and such other participants which should be stored very securely. Leakage of any such information may give rise to ethical tensions such misusing of the data, creating uncensored and unethical mms and videos. Thus after collection, storing is a big task with regards the social campaign media. Lastly is the handling of these data. A volume of data collection in a social media campaign is huge. Of which some are useful and the other are not. It is a matter of discretion and adequate parameters which helps a person to decide which one is relevant. The other data which is irrelevant should neither be totally deleted or stored safely so that it does not fall into the hands of scrupulous people(Schwartz, 2010). Thus even though there are ethical tensions with regards the collection, storing and handling user data for social media campaigns yet if proper procedures are followed then the same can be handled very smartly without much of a hassle. References: Bowden,J., (2014), Data Collection Strategy to Expand Digital Marketing Insights, Available at https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/data-collection-strategy-expand-digital-marketing-insights (Accessed 27th Marchh 2017) Gutierrez, M., (2013), The Ethics of Social Media Marketing, Available at https://www.huffingtonpost.com/mateo-gutierrez/social-media-marketing_b_2206357.html (Accessed 24th March 2017) House of Commons, Science and Technology., (2014), Responsible Use of Data, Available at https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmsctech/245/245.pdf (Accessed 24th March 2017) Marketing-Schools.org., (2012), Ethical Marketing, Available at https://www.marketing-schools.org/types-of-marketing/ethical-marketing.html (Accessed 24th March 2017) Schwartz,P.M., (2010), Data Protection Law And The Ethical Use of Analytics, Available at https://www.huntonfiles.com/files/webupload/cipl_ethical_undperinnings_of_analytics_paper.pdf (Accessed 24th March 2017)