1. Introduction

The Internet and social media development nowadays are constantly integrating and changing the world people live in. As the rapid development of the digital age, the coming of the 5G era, social media is getting more and more commonly used and has become one of the most significant ways for brand marketing in recent years. Today, besides conventional advertisements methods online, other ways such as short videos, social e-commerce, live broadcast have also risen and become mature, meeting the needs of market development, working as a way effective and commonly used to promote brand exposure to the consumers.

With the rapid development of social media marketing environment, businesses have to take some measures or adjustments to deal with the possible challenges it brings. In the following analysis part, the two main challenges, the consumer distraction and fierce competition in homogenized marketing methods, faced by the brands in social media marketing will be detailed analyzed by offering two cases.

2. Important Role of Social Media in Brand Marketing

Today, social media has become an indispensable part of people’s lives. For businesses, social media marketing provides a valuable platform for brands to establish their unique novelty in the marketplace. Through identifying and sending advertisements which contain positive values that are in line with consumer needs or mainstream, social media can draw the psychological distance between businesses and consumers close. Consumers can directly know about the general condition of the products from the clear and attracting advertisements during viewing the social media. If the brand has a successful and eye-catching advertisement, it will possibly grasp the attention of consumers and attract the consumers to further view its brands page. Moreover, it will own more loyal consumers if the brand idea and product quality meet their needs. By showcasing the image and specific brand information on social media, it can help brands to build brand image quickly and gain the trust of potential customers, which can bring brands a wide audience and increase customer stickiness.

Besides facing the consumers, social media has a wealth of data information about users, not only some basic information such as age and work, but also further analyses. Through the analysis of the content posted and shared by users, users' preferences, consumption habits and purchasing ability can be effectively judged, which can help brands to judge the advantages and disadvantages of their current used marketing strategies, so they will know what exact steps to take next [1].

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the technology that analyzes the ranking rules of search engines to understand how the various search engines work, how to crawl Internet pages, and how to determine the ranking of search results for specific keywords. Through the analysis of search engine ranking rules, brands can optimize the content of the advertising page, ensuring that it can fit in the user's browsing habits. Today, SEO requirements are constantly changing to meet the successful rankings. Merchants need to share content on social media to expose their brand to search engines, indicating its effectiveness and stability. With the help of a big data analysis platform, advertising companies combine the content of big data to obtain creative sources when designing advertisements, aiming to achieve the purpose of accurate creative planning. Also, it can enhance the attention of consumers and achieve reasonable advertising effects [2]. It is also possible for businesses to use paid advertising on social media. Being cost effective is important as it can help people get a greater return on investment and have a larger potential income and budget for other business payments.

By regularly updating the right social media marketing strategy, it will lead to better SEO, improved brand loyalty, healthier customer satisfaction, and much more. Also, social media plays a vital role in clarifying the position in marketing of the brands, which helps brands to justify their practice and achieve long-term development.

3. Challenges in Social Media Marketing and Case Analysis

With more and more businesses entering social media, they realize to face two challenges, one is consumer distraction brought by the mass similar social media advertisements. , the other is fierce competition.

With the passing of the Internet boom at the beginning of the 21st century, each Internet track is approaching saturation. This saturation includes the number of competitors, marketing content, and social media marketing methods. How to stand out in the social media marketing of the same type of competitors has become the development bottleneck of today's brands. Because the product or marketing content is not attractive and exclusive enough, many small brands cannot be noticed and favored by consumers, and therefore cannot survive in the competitive market. Similarly, many old brands, unable to adapt to the rapid changes in marketing methods in the Internet era, cannot play their advantages in social media marketing, and then lose the favor of existing customers and go into decline. In this regard, consumer psychology skills can be used in social media marketing to innovate the concept of marketing brands and achieve long-term development.

3.1. Case 1: jELLYCAT

jELLYCAT is a British toy brand, which is known for its cute image and the high price sold in China. jELLYCAT uses the liking and consensus principles of Cialdini’s principles of persuasion to grab constant audience attention. As the social concept of marriage and family has been changed and the number of single people has grown, people value more in quality of life and self-pleasure. With many celebrities bringing jELLYCAT in public spaces and expressing their favor for jELLYCAT for its cute figure through social media, many of the fans of the celebrities will turn out to be the fans of jELLYCAT, which brings jELLYCAT to a broader audience. The star effect plays a role. jELLYCAT is highly exposed to celebrities around the world when they go out with their children, such as Beckham's daughter and even Princess Charlotte of the UK. Also, it is seen in selfies of various celebrities, such as Nana Ouyang, Yuan Wang, William Chen, and Lusi Zha [3]. Meanwhile, with the addition of serious social and spiritual internal friction, lonely young people generally begin to seek spiritual support and outlets for loneliness and anxiety. jELLYCAT, whose brand idea is positioned on the delighting and healing individuals, took advantage of this market window and maximize the emotional value of its plush dolls. jELLYCAT names each stuffed animal and offers unique settings for them. Barcelona Bear, for example, is set up as a soft, fluffy bedtime companion, reading stories and singing children's songs to users each night. Also, jELLYCAT shows a self-introduction letter on its official website to fans in a human voice. The anthropomorphic interactions and expressions have brought jELLYCAT closer to consumers, which allows many fans to regard jELLYCAT as a talking-to friend. jELLYCAT also regularly offers limited editions that go out of print when they sell out, leading to some dolls being sold at inflated prices. jELLYCAT has also organized offline touring exhibitions in different cities across China, like Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Xiamen. The exhibitions create an opportunity for the brand to interact with consumers closely and show their latest products, so it is vital to do advertising through social media to notice the consumers and fans. By fully grasping the attention of the consumers and letting them actively participate in these events, jELLYCAT has built a firm connection with consumers and thus has brought brand loyalty. Social media marketing did help increase the notice of the brand and also allowed jELLYCAT to gather valuable feedback from customers in different regions as well.

Consumers will produce a strong purchase intention if it has a strong emotional experience, thus inducing more purchase behavior. Research has proved that uncertainty can not only generate and strengthen positive emotions, but also prolong the duration of positive emotions [4]. jELLYCAT not only meets the need of relieving stress and providing companionship for young people, but it also offers a wide range of products that meet different preferences and interests. The current popularity of jELLYCAT sets itself apart from its competitors and strengthens its position in the market. Conveying the message of comfort and the sense of security, the brand's advertisement on social media effectively makes it appealing to the worldwide audience.

Additionally, a perfect combination of marketing ideas and products and the cute figure of its products further enhances its distinctiveness and competitiveness. Overall, jELLYCAT's consumer psychology techniques in social media marketing have successfully differentiated it from other brands and won the favor of consumers.

3.2. Case 2: MALUJI

For most brands, in conventional marketing, they usually simply advertise their products by introducing the basic information of their product and its performance. While on the platform of social media, brands need to find far more elements than the product itself to help build brand differentiation.

Chinese food brand MALUJI makes a very unique and successful case at this point. The owner of MALUJI, Mrs. Zhang Lan, showed her own intelligence in brand marketing. In front of the audience in her live-in broadcast room, she explains the main difference of products between MALUJI and other brands, while from time to time she mentions her own inspirational growing experience and her history of entrepreneurship, sincerely sharing her own success and failure, which makes the consumers feel strongly empathized. The positive values she has put out to the audience has driven more and more liking and purchase willingness of the consumers, which help MALUJI gain positive outcomes in sales and brand building. Zhan Lan finds, before she valued the image with exquisite dress, makeup and temperament in the entrepreneur forum or the worldwide gathering, but now things are different. Compared with the appearance packages, the audience in the live-in broadcast room seem more like seeing a real Zhang Lan, who is wearing an apron in the kitchen, promoting MALUJI’s product while telling her own story or even joking about her own family privacy, that really makes the audience feel down- to - earth and near to hear [5]. MALUJI’s success in marketing is not so easy to copy, as they have found a unique brand differentiation, which is not only the good quality and taste of their product, but also the unique story behind it, which helps MALIUJI build emotional connection with consumers and attract more fans or consumers with loyalty and help the brand gain further development in fierce competition.

4. Suggestions

Based on the cases above, some suggestions are stated as follows:

4.1. Prioritizing both Marketing Data Analysis and Brand Image Reinforcement

As the main platform for brands to do online advertisement, social media provides a comprehensive database. The brands need to clarify the ways to legally get the marketing data and value the data presented online. Based on these dates, the brand should figure out barriers and solutions to break it, and how to get more exposure to social media.

Additionally, setting a unique brand sign is also necessary. For jELLYCAT, although it sets different meanings to the characters, the invariable thing remains is the symbolic facial expression of the dolls. In that case, when people surf online and see the representative smile of jELLYCAT in the advertisement, they will recognize the brand immediately and be more likely to further browse the advertisement of the brand they are familiar with. Undoubtedly, a solid brand image in the minds of consumers needs to be built on the basis of a large number of page views, including utilizing marketing data to understand consumer behavior and preferences. By doing so, companies can create a strong and lasting impression on consumers, leading to increased brand loyalty and recognition. Additionally, the efforts are mutually reinforcing, as a strong brand image can lead to more page views and engagement from consumers, it also solidifies the brand's presence in the market. Overall, to prioritize both marketing data analysis and brand memory point reinforcement is essential for businesses in order to establish a successful and enduring brand image.

4.2. Building a Strong Emotional Connection with Consumers

Studies have found that when consumers receive too much advertising from providers, they will feel disturbed, and most scholars have found that the interference of mobile advertising has a significant negative impact on consumers' attitudes [6]. Direct and aggressive advertisements also make consumers feel uncomfortable and forced to purchase, which will lead to the decrease of purchase willing. While using psychological and emotional techniques during advertising will have a very positive effect. In MALUJI’s case, Zhang Lan mainly tells her story during advertising and interacts sincerely with the audience, providing emotional value and positive value to the audience. People feel being noticed and valued during the interaction and also pay for the sincerity and identified values expressed by Zhang Lan [7]. The liking principle of persuasion brings MALUJI gain favor exposure and long-term consumers, which lead the brand to further development.

While exploring new methods of advertising and innovating the content, brands need to focus on building a strong emotional connection with consumers. Consumers will not only regard the brand as a transaction object to meet the functional requirements, but also as a friend and partner, so as to establish a closer long-term relationship with the brand [8].

5. Conclusions

As a platform for brand marketing and advertising, social media today has been attached with great importance to more and more businesses. With more and more businesses taking use of this platform, they are facing some challenges as well. In this paper, the British toy brand jELLYCAT and Chinese food brand MALUJI are taken as examples to illustrate how they take use of social media to establish their brand successfully. The present study offers suggestions on the application of big data and importance to use consumer psychology and strengthening brand image on social media, to other businesses.