Pros And Cons Of Using Facebook In Media Planning

Social media, Facebook specifically, has become one of the most successful forms of websites on the Internet. According to Facebook Company statistics (Info, 2016) there are over 1.65 billion monthly active users as of March 31, 2016. Additionally there are 1.09 billion daily active users for

Social media refers to websites where individuals can create, share, and exchange information in a virtual community and network. The channels of social media include Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, and blogs. There is a rise in the use of social media because of increase in technology. The increased penetration of internet in the world has rapidly increased the users of social media making it widespread and accessible to people throughout the world. Its emergence has led to building of new relationships while also impacting others.

Facebook, being the most popular, has over 24 million active users per day, which is 37.5% of the population. The beauty of social media is that users have an environment where they can share posts, photos, videos, and even music to people around the world instantly. Social media is evolving

Facebook is one of the top social media platforms with more than 1.23 billion active users worldwide. 62% of the 1.23 billion users log in on a daily basis making it the best medium to reach for new customers. Today, businesses both big and small use Facebook as an advertising source to help their brand expand.

The English Definition of social media is “websites and other online means of communication that are used by large groups of people to share information and to develop social and professional contacts” (“social media”). In comparison a German professor defines social media like this: Social media is used for the connection of their users and their communication through the Internet (Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel). One can see that the definition is nearly the same although the people descend from completely different countries and cultures. Additionally, there was a big change in the use of social media in the last years, which was influenced by the fast development of technology.

In this day and age, social media has become an integral part of our lives. It has created a platform for people to share information instantly and communicate with people all around the world. Facebook is the most outstanding example of successful social media network. According to the first quarter 2015 earnings announcement by Facebook, the site has achieved 1.44 billion active users per month, and 65% of which are daily active users. Other social networking sites such as Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn are also a powerful means of communication. With such a large audience, social networking sites provide ample opportunities to acquire information, network, and connect with friends.

Facebook is estimated to have over 845 million users, mostly college-aged young adults. Its explosive growth and reputation in social networking have made it not only a market leader, but also a household brand name. The audience is global (excluding China) and the site has now been translated into 70 different languages.

The term social media generally refers to communication technologies and interactive platform, such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. A further definition is given by Kaplan
and Haenlein
 (2010) who described it as a group of Internet-based applications that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content, and emphasizes that any user of social media can be a content creator and can distribute to a network of users. In a broad term, social media is the social interaction via online information and communication technologies

Social media has made communication a lot more easier than ever before. Now, with a touch of a button people could communicate with anybody any where in the world. Websites such as Facebook makes communication with others an easy task. Facebook improved commucnication and even made communication a better experience. Facebook allow peole to share photos, post comments, and view people’s personal information. With almost 500 million users accounts, facebook is considered to be one of the most popular social media websites,most of the people use it as a substitute for real life human interaction.

Social media has taken off like a rocket throughout the years. The annoying sound of a modem connecting has turned into a soundless transaction. The wait time to connect is instant, opening a global world of interactions for people. You can now connect with anyone, anywhere at anytime at least once a day. Social media defined by Goyal is “Any platform,which provides the facility of sharing ideas, exchanging information and sending messages over an electronic medium, is considered as social media.” (Goyal,222). This is to include online magazines, Facebook, Twitter, Newspapers,Email, Blogs, YouTube and many more. Advertisers have taken notice to these platforms, utilizing social media to promote their brands, develop trust with the consumer,save money and target audiences faster than ever before.

Facebook is also a global platform. It is a Top 10 social media entity across the world (Check out the social media behavior complete with charts and details.)

The reason that YouTube and Facebook are the chosen marketing strategy is that they are the most known tools and the most used tools by anyone, rich, poor, old, and young, etc. Today, everyone has a smartphone, and Facebook and YouTube are accessible in all of them, and it is not necessary to have a computer to login into your Facebook or access YouTube. Better yet, since the campaign strategy is to have people screened as early as possible, Facebook will help to attract the youth, and the message can also be disseminated around the world. A powerful message about diabetes can be easily accessed by millions if posted on Facebook and YouTube. It is estimated that a total of 275 non-profit organizations have a profile on Facebook, and

Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are considered to be the leading social networking sites today with an audience range of nearly 160 million viewers per month (Mudd, Rich &

With scientific and technological progress, anything develops, especially the advent of the Internet era spawned a number of new things. The United States has been certainly walking in the forefront of the times, but China who has 731 million Internet users can also not be underestimated. As the one who earliest accessed to the Internet era, United States is always the leader of the social media in the world. China’s social media users try to catch up from behind. Today, more and more information is available through the social media across the world.

Digital media marketing, especially Facebook marketing shall also play a key role in the communication strategy.