The Fifth P of Marketing

We know from the study of marketing that there are four "Ps” that make up a marketing mix:

1. product,
2. price,
3. promotion, and
4. place (or distribution).

When thinking about social media marketing, we need to add a fifth P to the mix. That P is participation. Rather than employing a top-to-bottom approach, as is the case with traditional marketing, social media marketing must allow the user to have input. Studies show that consumer reviews are trusted more than traditional marketing methods. It therefore makes sense for marketers to pay attention to consumer reviews, respond to them when necessary, and make use of them whenever appropriate.

Marketers traditionally have made use of three types of media:

• paid media—television commercials, print magazine ads, other promotional messaging;
• owned media—your business’s web page or e-commerce site; and
• earned media—news stories generated by press releases, participation in community events, and so on.

Social media brings with it another form of media that is not so easily defined. It might feel like a type of owned media because you set up a profile on a social media site (such as Facebook). But the truth is that the corporation or entity that owns that site has complete and total jurisdiction over what you can and cannot post on the site. Moreover, the community (users of the site who have connected to your page) has the ability to post and say whatever it likes about your organization.

Rather than trying to control or dictate that conversation—as we would with traditional marketing techniques—it is, instead, recommended to take a different approach. Social media marketers are advised to do the following (from Tuten & Solomon, 2018, p. 26):

• Listen to the customer conversations.
• Analyze those conversations.
• Relate this information to existing information within your enterprise. 
• Act on those customer conversations.

In other words, social media marketing often necessitates taking a break from promoting and first listening to and taking in customer feedback, and then responding in an appropriate fashion.

Social media marketers can take on many different roles in establishing methods of communication and promotion through social media outlets. These various careers are outlined in detail near the end of the first chapter in our text.