Pinball Metaphors

The use of social media marketing has become a standard way in which organizations advertise their products or services. Social media marketing allows consumers to have immediate access to other consumers reviews or to post a review about a product or service. There is engagement between the company and the consumer (Evans, Dave 2010). Social Media emerged in the late 1980’s when websites such as Prodigy, Compuserve and America Online. Prodigy was first of it’s kind and was known as a ”consumer online service”. Half of the page is devoted to advertising. Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Hi5, Bebo and Orkut are all social media platforms that are utilized as platforms today.

Marketing has historically been defined by the four foundational elements of place or distribution, promotion, pricing and product. These four aspects of marketing have served the definition of this strategic area of business well over the last several decades marketing has existed as a discipline in business. Yet over time the 4Ps of marketing have given way to a more dynamic approach to creating and sustaining relationships with customers. The onslaught and en masse adoption of social media and social networks have led to an increasingly vocal and assertive customer base across both business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketplaces (Bernoff, Li, 2008). The 4 Ps are not agile and flexible enough to manage the many differences in customer relationships, the development of loyalty, and the mercurial change in how customers choose to learn and buy that has been accelerated by social networks. The greatest challenge for marketers today is to move beyond the relatively fixed and rigid of marketing from the past and embrace the future. The intent of this analysis is to compare two definitions of marketing from peer-reviewed research in addition to providing a personal definition. The critically important aspect of marketing from an organizational success standpoint is discussed as well, with three separate examples provided to further provide insight and illustration of how critical marketing is to

Social media is not new. Facebook has been around since 2004, YouTube since 2005, and Twitter in 2006. What is new is how social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are affecting the way businesses market their products and services. Never before in our history have consumers been able to communicate so effortlessly with each other and with the businesses they frequent. Never before have businesses been able to interact and react to customer feedback so quickly and efficiently. However, just because businesses have the ability to use social media for their marketing and advertising efforts, does not necessarily mean they should. This paper intends to

Social Media has changed the communication setting for all marketers. “Perhaps the greatest value of social media marketing is your ability to foster and engage with a community of people” (moz.com). An involved audience is one of the greatest resources a brand can have. There

| First, marketers must realize that they often do not control the content on social media sites. Second, the ability to share experiences quickly and with such large number of people amplifies the impact of word of mouth in a way that can eventually affect a company's bottom line. Third, social media allow marketers to listen. It is no longer one way communication. Marketers now can actually have conversation with customers and get feedbacks. Fourth, social media also provide more sophisticated methods of measuring how marketers meet and interact with consumers than

Marketing in the digital age has become a thing of beauty. There have been some truly amazing campaigns in recent history that would leave the likes of Donald Draper (AMC’s Mad Men ) flabbergasted. One of the more successful strategies seems to be the corporations leveraging the target audience to market their products on their behalf. Frito-Lay saw success with their Crash the Super Bowl campaign, Fitbit has taken off with their social media presence, and Samsung raised the bar with their “impromptu” selfies. All of these companies have found ways to advertise their products without having to lift a finger; rather, the consumer does all the work.

Bruhn, Schäfer, and Schoenmueller use data that shows interactions from a company on social media leads to a positive effect on a consumer's awareness of a brand (2012). The social media platform makes it easy for companies to stay relevant in today's society. Posting on social media allows a company to be visible to its consumers and non-consumers on a regular basis. This type of marketing makes it easy for consumers to recognize and remember a company, consciously or unconsciously. People constantly absorb different company advertisements on social media and without realizing it become aware of various brands. Not to mention, if a consumer notices a post that intrigues their interest they will be more likely to start following this company on a regular basis. Additionally, social media marketing brings more awareness to a company by displaying promotions. Saravanakumar and SuganthaLakshmi mention how different companies will share offers and deals on social media to keep consumers on their social media accounts (2012, p. 4447). This shows how companies use social media to increase brand awareness and gain more recognition. By offering special deals, consumers are more likely to remember the company off the top of their head. In addition to the consumer's awareness, the consumer is also more likely to take an interest in what the company is offering. A company's

September 4, 2015, I had the opportunity to interview Brynne Tillman, CEO of Social Sales Link to discuss marketing as a field. Publicist Brynne, tells her clients to “think in the box” in her book: Social Sales Link, which has been a guide to sales teams and marketers alike. She also devotes time each week to publish a new social media blog. Something she has been doing every Sunday morning for the last 2 years. Graduating in 1990 with her bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Management lead to several sales positions. Brynne, at the forefront of the social media revolution, found a use in engaging customers in business. Using her sales experience she applied it to social media, becoming CEO of her own company, Social Sales Link. I was able to walk away with a better understanding about communications, importance of LinkedIn, expert opinions on social media, what every business owner should know, and innovation.

Successful social media sites are effective for sharing information, for project collaboration, and for communication. One of the advantages of social media is that there is a direct interaction with their followers, from a marketing point of view, this is an ideal situation. Marketers have their target audience’s attention. All they need to do is to deliver their message. Whether one’s goal is to share information, develop a network community for feedback or for promoting a project or idea, social media can be a powerful

We live in a day and age where marketing and advertising is stronger then ever. It is essentially in our face every where we turn, from the clothes we wear to the music we listen to and even the device we use to listen to our music. Marketing and advertising touches our lives everyday without our really ever even noticing it. Marketing professionals have a difficult challenge before them in figuring out a way to create a public interest, and a want for their products if they are to become adopted. Various marketing communications tools provide the means to which they will best reach the public. In the early 1990's marketing professionals for PepsiCo choose to heavily promote and advertise a new

The marketing industry is an elaborate network that links companies to their consumers, primarily through written communication. The main objective of marketing is to identify trends and patterns in consumer behavior, and utilize the data to influence consumers to purchase more goods. From a macroenviroment standpoint, the general conditions of a market are heavily dependent on global environmental factors. The most significant factor that influences the markets today is technological advancements. Since the release of Facebook, Linked-in, Twitter, and Myspace in the early 2000s, the number of people using social media has increased to over sixty-five percent. The ever-growing dependency on social media platforms, has given marketers the tremendous opportunity to further market potential consumers. Social media marketing is a specific form of marketing that focuses on producing ad content that social media users will post on their own networks. This particular marketing technique is effective because ads and content are created, based on what personal information users post on social media. Firms and organizations that advertise their brands on social media are more likely to increase their customer base and annual revenue. By doing so, companies are able to increase exposure of their brand and widen previous hidden, customer bases. As a marketer, the fine line between right and wrong is often blurred. The amount and

In today’s business world, social media is being discussed on a daily basis. This phenomenon has taken over the marketing and advertising industries and has changed the way they handle their efforts to attract customers. There is a big misunderstanding that social media are only popular networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, but as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, social media are “forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and micro blogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos).” The rise of these online communities has given companies an opportunity to engage in conversations with their customers. This in

Another large portion of social media marketing is social networks. Many people are on some form of social networking website. Whether it may be Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat almost everyone has at least one of this networks. This social networking cites are a way for the company to market products in a free or relatively cheap way to a wide variety of consumers. This methods also allow Coca-Cola to reach a variety of consumers. Someone who enjoys Facebook may not enjoy Twitter. However, because Coca-Cola has both Twitter and Facebook they are able to send their messages and communicate to people through both ways, despite one person’s preference over the other. These

Technology has undoubtedly transformed marketing strategies in their most effective form, but the key to successful branding is more than just being digitally intelligent. This chapter will be reviewing experts’ opinions on how brand exposure and communications improve by exploiting the digital channels and Big Data’s treasures, but also, provide

This new media may be disruptive to old business models and practices but opens the door to an enhanced and real-time consumer relations (Henning-Thurau, et al., 2010). Social media popularity is growing at an exponential rate and consumers give their opinion on products and services on electronic channels. There is no need for surveys and pols, marketers need to adapt to the new forms of consumer conversations. In the past collecting consumer opinion was timely and expensive using focus groups and surveys. Today the daunting amount of data gathered on social media is inexpensive to collect but sometimes a challenge to derive insight from. The consumer data is unstructured and thus hard to classify, summarise and derive meaning from.