How to use social media for effective marketing – Aremu
By Abubakar Imam
A former Head of the Department of Marketing, University of Ilorin, Prof. Mukaila Ayanda Aremu, has urged manufacturers of goods and service providers to inject social media marketing in their activities for their goods and services to survive in the competitive business environment.
Prof. Aremu, who is currently serving as Provost of the Kwara State College of Education, Oro, gave this advice last Thursday (March 26, 2026) while delivering the 299th Inaugural Lecture of the University, titled “Marketing: Small Word, Big Consequences” at the University Multipurpose Hall.
The don said that adoption of social media marketing has become imperative in order to avoid “negative and big consequences”.
He explained that this was necessitated by the fact that social media marketing provides a more effective platform for the commercial promotion of products and services through the social network sites.
Prof. Aremu enjoined managers to explore the power of social media marketing to increase sales because “cost of promoting goods per customer is very low”.
He also said that marketing should not be seen as a small word to be neglected. He, therefore, proposed that organisations should increase their advertising/promotional budget and step up their advertising activities by expanding their frontiers.
He explained that it is only when organisations are visible, reach target audiences effectively and communicate value through promotional activities that will enable them to drive revenue in order to prevent negative consequences or going into extinction. Hence, Prof. Aremu suggested that advertising and promotional activities of an organisation should be adequately funded.
Prof. Aremu also encouraged business owners and managers to establish Marketing Unit/Department in their organisations and that such should be manned by professional marketing executives.
He added that engaging personnel into the Marketing Unit/Department should be strictly based on professionalism so that it will be a case of a round peg in a round hole. This, he said, will culminate in positive consequences for the organisations.
The Inaugural Lecturer also advised service providers to ensure high quality, provide variety of products/services, conducive atmosphere, and moderately low price for the various classes of services being provided. This is because, these are the most important factors in selecting products and services by customers to prevent negative consequences.
To ensure the sustainable growth of organisations, Prof. Aremu said that strategic marketing planning and implementation should be explored. He said that organisations should have good understanding of strategic marketing planning and implement it to achieve positive and big consequences.
Prof. Aremu also encouraged managers to implement market segmentation as an alternative strategy in order to maintain the largest market share in their industry. Market segmentation, according to Prof. Aremu, will assist in concentrating marketing energy and strategy on subdividing to gain a competitive advantage within the segment in the industry.
The Provost also said that organisations should be conscious of the pricing strategy that they intend to implement. He said that they must review all other factors affecting the choice of pricing strategies to build an efficient pricing plan that would prevent negative consequences in the organisations. He said that organisations that want to succeed and avoid negative consequences in this digital period must factor in price, cost and income level of consumers, since consumers have access to numerous products.
The Inaugural Lecturer also said that organisations should scan the environment before designing their products and services to prevent negative consequences. He pointed out that the survival of organisations in this competitive environment requires appropriate scanning of the organisational environment and analysing its internal situation. He said that these inward and outward views are the backbone of marketing planning that would guarantee favourable consequences.
Prof. Aremu also said management of organisations should always ensure remarkable improvement in quality service delivery so as to satisfy customer/clients needs and be more responsive. He said that they need to look at service rendered from the viewpoint of the customer rather than the organisations perspective to prevent negative consequences.
The don said that a good system needs to pay much attention to the customers’ complaints and improve the service delivery. He pointed out that delivering quality service to the customers would bring high level of reliability and sustainability that would prevent negative consequences.
When experiencing challenges, Prof. Aremu encouraged management of organisations to rebrand their declining products and services to prevent them from going into extinction and reduce its negative consequences. This, according to him, can be carried out by updating the brand visual identity such as features, colour, etc. and align them with the target market. This will result in positive and big consequences.
Prof. Aremu, who parades traditional titles from several communities, urged his colleagues in the academia and leaders of other sectors to ensure that they are more socially responsible and responsive for them to earn public trust.
The Inaugural Lecture, which was presided over by the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Wahab Olasupo Egbewole, SAN, was also attended by Principal Officers of the University, several traditional rulers, Igbomina community leaders, friends, relations, colleagues and students as well as mentees of Prof. Aremu’s famly from far and near.
