Social Media As A Marketing Tool

When technological advancement began so did the growth of social networking. Social networking became easier with the innovation of smartphones, by making social media more accessible than its initial phases. However, in social networking’s earliest stages social media sites were created with the purpose of helping people stay linked together despite the distance separating each other. During that time, the only means of using these networking sites were by having access to a computer. Without the easy accessibility to computers, people back then could carry on with everyday life tasks without social networking distracting us from the life around us. Despite social media not fully taking off until the booming of mobile devices, the earliest known form of social media is believed to have been created in 1995 by way of Classmates.com. Eventually being followed by networks such as Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest (Social Media). Unfortunately networking quickly changed in the 2010s when smartphones became more common and social media sites began to release their products as mobile applications or apps (Social Media). In this day and age in which some school-age children are gifted mobile devices almost everyone can get their hands on social media. It has become so easy to stay communicated by means of these social media apps that we are starting to forget how to interact among each other. We are moving away from face to face

Through out the year, we have seen the development of social media evolving. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Instagram etc. are not to post personal photos from your vacation or parties with friend anymore but also a tool for your business. A vital tool that is, social media has became a powerful marketing tool if it is used correctly, it can guide the customers from their social media site to their actual business site where information is provided much more in detail.

This review of the literature will critically compare and contrast the increasing pieces of contemporary writing that aim to explore the ever-changing relationship between consumers and brands, and more specifically how Social media has changed this relationship and what this means for companies trying to improve their brand awareness, which is defined by Keller (2009) as “the strength of the brand…in memory as reflected by consumers’ ability to recall or recognize the brand under different conditions.”

In today’s day and age, many businesses have made use of social media to market their products and brands. Although nearly all of these organizations share a common goal of gaining publicity, the strategies they use to attain that goal varies on different and even on the same social media platforms. In order to gain attention on Facebook, the most popular social media website, companies have to utilize multiple approaches to maximize their yield from such marketing investments. On Facebook, companies have set up third-party applications to enable fans to participate in competitions to win rewards. Snapchat, Google+, and Instagram have also been used by along with Facebook to encourage the participation of customers in spreading the word about certain promotions. Moreover, community service events and the allocation of beneficial intellectual ideas that can both help the world move forward have also been made possible by social media websites such as Instagram and LinkedIn.

Social media have attracted a large number of users in a short time; Web 2.0 has allowed a communication interaction in two ways providing a platform for companies and consumers to engage timely and in direct contact. As a result of this trust based relation and rapid adoption by consumers, companies are extending social media use in their marketing strategies (Dao, et al. 2014). Push methods in traditional advertising are becoming more difficult to create brand impact, meanwhile new techniques such as social media strategies, viral marketing and worth of mouth (WOM) are being used by advertisers as a way to potentialize the communication reach and engagement (Montigny et al. 2012).

The continued growth of social-media sites now means that the digital world becomes the main means for the creation of social communication.

In today’s information based world, there is a neck-to-neck competition between the current as well as emerging social networking sites. Social media is no longer limited in its features, but instead consists of multi-functional features. Therefore, social media has become universally adapted phenomenon, especially with the readily available Internet services as well as mobile devices. The outcome of this trend has improved the marketing strategies, created an easy online communication platform, expedited the process for sharing information, reduced the cost spent on marketing, and above all provided a medium to collaborate on a global scale. In this digital age, social media comes in various shapes and forms that have almost became the cultural niche are: YouTube, Facebook, Yelp, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest. Let alone for Facebook, in 2014 there were over billion active users (Stříteský, Stránská, & Drábik, 2015). However, as per the future claims made by Wilson (2014), it is predicted that in the upcoming years social media such as “Pinterest will emerge as a stronger alternative to Facebook”, which seems inaccurate.

Technology has allowed businesses to reach new markets and consumers; thus, allowing for a broader reach. The marketing efforts of the practice should be to attract new patients while keeping older patients satisfy with the services offered. The first thing the practice needs to do involves market segmentation, which allows the practice to reach their target segments and identify potential consumes that are being underserved by grouping them based on particular characteristics. For example, a practice might decide that individuals over a certain age are being underserved based on their market segmentation; therefore, marketing efforts should be aimed at those individuals. This is of particular importance

Social media use isn’t just an arbitrary ego boost for brands and individuals. It’s a driving factor in business, marketing, technology and so much more. We Are Social reports that 2.1 billion out of the 7.2 billion people in the world now have social media accounts. Americans certainly fall into the mix, with 60% using it for their news fix, but at the same time they’re also doing other things like viewing ads. This means that you absolutely cannot ignore the impact of these huge and varied platforms on advertising, marketing and promotion. Let’s try to look into some examples of smart, creative and efficient use of social media to see what works.

Communicating in today’s society has become a lot easier with these social networking sites allowing us to communicate with people with a simple click of the mouse. This essay is going to prove that social networking sites are evolving and that communicating online is making it easier for people to communicate, easier for people to invite others to social events and allow people to have romantic relations online.

Communication is one of the most important and dynamic areas in the world we live today (Bailey 20). Over the last few decades, communication drastically changed to fit into the modern era of technology and it could be argued that technological advancements have greatly affected the way communication is conducted today. As communication and information travel faster and faster, the world has become smaller and smaller. Social media has arguably changed the way communication is done drastically. At first, communication was made through the use of mails, through a landline telephone, and through letters (Bailey 23). However, the last decade or so has seen communication be dominated by text messages, voice messages, and instant messages. However, the most prominent means of communication today are the social network sites like the Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and other social networks (Bailey 30).

This report provides a detailed analysis of the significant similarities and differences between the utilization of social media between Business to Business (B2B) marketers and Business to Consumer (B2C) marketers. This analysis is necessary to combat the widely accepted notion that social media marketing campaigns primarily serve B2C marketing only. To contest this false stereotype, this paper will justify reasons that B2B social media marketing is not only pertinent, but is also crucial in the success of companies to establish and maintain relations with customers in modern times.

According to state of inbound marketing in the year 2012 62% of marketers said social media became more important to the marketing campaigns in the last 6 months. Apparently businesses had moved on to the next big step of marketing their products and services to consumers or other businesses. Marketing using social media as a tool to reach out to millions of consumers and businesses had enhanced the sale rates, the relationship between the provider and the consumer, the quality of the product or service. Furthermore, because marketing using social media is less expensive than the usual way, the process of beginning a new business became much affordable, and so the unemployment rates had decreased, with a final result of economic growth.

Social media can be used in very creative ways to market goods or services globally. Conducting business in other countries has been accelerated by various media platforms. Global marketing involves many challenges, and also involves a degree of corporate social responsibility.

The author of this research proposal targets to inspect the significance of social media marketing of IT products specifically in United Kingdom.