Social Media Marketing Compared to Throwing a Party

In the newest book that we are reading in class, “Social Media Marketing Workbook 2016” written by Jason McDonald, the first chapter makes an analogy that I find to be intriguing. The author compares managing a social media page for marketing purposes to throwing a party. He mentions that in order to throw a party that many people want to attend, you must have everything in order, meaning food, entertainment, invitations, guests, and music. This means that on your page, you must have an attractive profile picture and header photo, as well as quality content if you want people to come to your page. You also have to keep your visitors entertained with your content without making them feel overwhelmed with it. The whole thing can be a tricky and tiring process, just like planning and throwing a party.

I found this analogy to be quite helpful in thinking about attracting people to your social media page. I knew that it couldn’t be that easy to get people to follow and like you while marketing on social media, but I have never really thought about the actual process of making it all happen. This analogy provides somewhat of a checklist for people to think about when they attempt to market online. If they think about the food/entertainment of a party as the content of their page, the decorations at a party as the attractiveness of their page, and the face that no one likes to go to a party where they don’t know anyone as a way to invite and promote good reviews on their page, then the people marketing online might have a better chance of understanding their responsibilities of management. How to go about marketing on social media makes much more sense to me now, and I believe this analogy could potentially help marketers across the country.