Social Media and Marketing

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.

There has been a tremendous amount of change in the global markets in the past few years. This has predominantly due to the fact that there is a shift in the consumer mindset, consumption patterns, changes in demography and organizational attitude brought through by advancement in technology. This has led to a change in marketing strategies and practices across the world. Marketing thinkers and companies are prompted to frequently re-think their strategies and adopt new theoretical and practical approach to address specific marketing changes and also to think beyond the scope of traditional marketing theories (Constantinides, E, 2006). A majority of the changes were influenced by the

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

The way that individuals and businesses communicate and interact has radically changed. With the development of technology and the internet, people can connect almost instantaneously and with very little effort. Social media has come to play a huge part in the way that the world communicates with each other. In fact, a recent report shows that in a single month people spend over 25 hours on social networks (“The Digital Consumer”). With consumers committing that much time to social media sites, social networking has become an important aspect of everyday life for individuals—and businesses. Like most marketing activities, social media marketing poses some risk. However, it is advantageous for businesses to exploit this opportunity, and develop an effective and ethical marketing strategy that includes using social media as a marketing tool.

Social networks have become a essential part of many of our lives. We don’t even notice this but, as soon as we open our desktops or laptops, we automatically open our favorite social network just to see if there are any updates or if we have received anything different then from the last time it was checked. Businesses have noticed the significance of social networks in everyone’s daily life, and because of this knowledge, they have started using different techniques to promote their products. There are ways that customers can now tell companies what they want exactly and with this information they can change products if needed. There are numerous customized applications being made on the social media, with the purpose is to promote the product or their brand. They are shifting more towards social marketing since is more cost effective and there is a bigger audience for

Social media marketing is so important these days. Whatever people are saying about you and your company on social media is often the first impression prospective customers and business associates get of you. Managing social media can be a huge challenge and another way you can employee your virtual assistant to your advantage.

Just a few years ago, social media was considered a relatively new phenomenon yet present day would say something entirely different. Social media has now become a vital part of any modern marketing mix, so much so that managing your presence on what are considered the “big three” (Twitter, Facebook and Google+) is now a must. If you aren’t social media ready, then your business simply isn’t up to speed. For those who still find themselves sneering at the thought of supposedly reducing themselves to opening an account on these “childish” social media platforms, we ask you: how much more proof do you need than 665 million daily active users on Facebook and now well over 500 million registered accounts on it’s little sister Twitter? Social media marketing is indeed the way forward. Granted, lacking social profiles on the likes of Pinterest, LinkedIn or Tumblr may not do you any harm but if you’re looking to reach far greater exposure in the digital market place, then social media marketing is the way to do it.

AirAsia and JetBlue are companies that provide airline services. AirAsia is doing Social CRM very well using Facebook by putting in effort in replying to as many comments as it can — and with nearly 3 million Facebook likes, that's literally a lot of work to keep up with. AirAsia responds to user inquiries with helpful web page links and advices, and is always friendly and brings the personality to its replies, whether it's the middle of the work day or the middle of the night. AirAsia also runs numbers of fun promotions on Facebook Page, like its "Free Seats Challenge," which gives 12 winning customers a year's worth of free seats on flights.

In today’s world advertisements are everywhere, they can be found when scrolling through social media and walking down the street. The reason this is important is because they are extremely influential. Whether someone is a child or a senior citizen, they can still be affected by advertisement. Young adults, between the ages of 18 to 35, are still especially susceptible to the things they are presented, meaning viewers should be more cautious. Contrary to popular belief young adults aren’t completely convinced with the things they have been taught, their opinions can still be swayed. In fact, they are looking for new things to believe, they are still overflowing with curiosity. This means that young adults are extremely vulnerable to advertisements.

The most effective way to get future marketers ready for use of social media in the workplace is to teach them in their schools what kinds of things they will see on a daily basis when marketing through social media. According to the article “A Social Media Practicum,” the author talks about how at Drexel University, they have started a practicum for marketing students to take. This practicum puts the students in real life situations, and how to be prepared for the daily tasks of their future careers. The marketing educators have been creating effective learning experiences to enhance students’ social media competency, such as individual or group assignments in networking on social media sites, specifically, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. This seems to be an effective way to get these students prepared. Also in the article, they talked about how the participants have become competent in running social media campaigns. In the first year of the practicum, 140 marketing students in 36 teams participated. It seems that this has far been a success of this school because the business students want to get involved and know how to connect to as many people as possible.

Cory Doctorow once said, “this I why I loved technology: If you used it right, it could give you power and privacy.” The idea is not about the choice to use it or not use it; it’s about using it right. Technology brings excitement, it helps look into the future and makes us brave enough to try and change it. I would think one would ask the question: Is social media the NEW marketing? Let’s begin with what is social media and what is marketing? Social media is forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos) (Dictionary). Marketing is the activities that are involved in making

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.

The statistics help us appreciate the marketing power of social media. It is estimated that 75% of the global consumers who use the web regularly visit social media websites (Libert, 2011). Visitors are reported as spending anywhere from 3 to 6.5 hours a day on sites such as Facebook. Subscriptions for social media sites are growing by leaps and bounds. Facebook, as an example, announced over 500 million users in 2011. Similarly, LinkedIn reports over 60 million subscribers; Twitter has 110 million users and MySpace claims of 50 million users in the United States alone (Fredericks, 2012). This indicates that social media has truly etched out a dominant position in the modern world of communication. For

If we think about the Nineties, business enterprises used newspaper, television and radio as mediums for publicizing. We have come a long way since then; now companies can ask their consumers to ‘Like’ their pages and ask them to ‘Share’ the page among their friends and relatives. Today social media is the highlight of everyone's lives and we can all thank Mark Zuckerberg for setting up a network of 1.2 billion of prospective friends, Facebook.

businesses are looking for more proficient ways to advertise and sell their goods to consumers.