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.

One of the key roles of social media from a marketing perspective is the development of a client based platform. It is becoming an increasingly important part of any business’s marketing. Businesses can utilize existing online platforms to build networks of current and potential clients. By being active online allows businesses to connect with their customers in innovative ways to become a trusted source of information and convey the passion they have for their industry.

Social media has become an influential ground for consumers to share their opinions about a company’s brand and products. In addition, it helps in having a strong brand that produces positive relations and distinguish the brand from competitors, is a critical component for effective marketing. According to Dahlén and Lange (2009) “the quality of the product is not the evident factor when it comes to purchasing a product, the deciding factor depends on how the brand is perceived” (Para. 1). This demonstrates the importance of incorporating social media as a tool to promote brands, allow for interactions, and customer satisfaction by engaging with customers more frequently for feedbacks or reviews. Thus create an opportunity for the company to show its devotion to their customers, and initiate good reputation, which can increase sales. In other words, social media has the ability to upsurge the awareness for businesses as well as the brand.

The paper will began by an overview of the social media sector accompanied by its impact on human behaviour. I will then talk a bit about the modern marketing strategies which companies are using through social media. Later on I will describe the Statistics that Show Social Media is the Future of Customer Service. Finally the essay will conclude with my opinion about the impact of social media on today’s business world and human life.

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 rise of social media has been a global phenomenon since internet giant Facebook began, with one in seven people having a Facebook account (Hennig-Thurau, Hofacker & Bloching 2013). This has had an impact on the marketing environment in several ways, with the two most notable being increased active participation and a strong level of networked interconnectedness (Hennig-Thurau, Hofacker & Bloching 2013). These two changes have shifted the power from the marketer to the consumer, as the regular consumer now has access to vast amounts of information and has the ability to amplify their opinion globally (Labrecque et al. 2013). For this reason, it may be argued that in the 21st century, marketing occurs among consumers, and is no longer purely

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

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 media is an effective media of communication between the consumers and companies. The companies are using social media for improving consumer engagement and brand lift. This essay gives a brief overview of social media platforms and how effective they have been. It shows that the whole marketing concept has undergone radical transformation due to the social media interaction. The essay ends in conclusion depicting what marketers need to take care in order to have successful social media campaign.

Social media is capable of connecting a brand with its consumers and discover how they are being perceived, it also has the power to change perceptions and identify the key people within the business network. The unique feature of social media is that it can provide corporations and businesses solutions developed through operating with consumers and stakeholders. Basically, social media serves as a visible connection to one’s corporation and its stakeholders, consumers, suppliers, etc, who each have a defined role within the system to filter and regulate information. As mentioned earlier, the influence of social media is spreading in a proliferative pace that has resulted to an essential transformation in society, technology and business customs.

Marketing has evolved through a change in production and consumption due to the advent of new technology (Ranchhod, 2004). The development of technology has also driven the globalisation of communication. During this period, consumers are facing a variety of choices (Jackson and Shaw, 2009). Thus, companies need to actively embrace these changing factors to grow their business and succeed in the marketplace.

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

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.

Social media is defined as a group of Internet-based applications which build on the platform of Web 2.0 and the contents of these applications can be modified by all users in a participatory and collaborative method (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Social media creates a platform for companies to talk to their customers as a hybrid element of promotion mix. With the emergence of social media, the tools and strategies for companies to connect with customers have also changed (Mangold and Faulds, 2009). To adapt with the emergence of social media in the marketing, companies should have unique insights about these significances (Quan-Haase and Young, 2010). The significances of social media embody three main aspects which are technology, decision-making and purchase behaviors of customers.