Saturday, July 30, 2011

The Case for Social Media as a Marketing Tool

Social media, a term that has gained immense popularity in the internet arena, refers to a specific collection of websites whose content is generated and published by the users instead of those websites. These users create and exchange opinions and ideas through online platforms such as blogs and micro blogs, social networks and bookmarks, photo and video sharing sites and many other available platforms depending on the design and provision of the website. Examples of social media platforms include facebook, twitter, You tube, Flickr and LinkedIn among others.
Due to their ever growing subscriber base, social media has become the frontline in e-marketing where businesses and individuals draw attention and hence publicity to their products and services.
By definition, social media marketing is a set of techniques and operations aimed at yielding commercial publicity via social media and other online communities. The advertisers literally take their adverts to where potential clients hang out, at the social networking sites.

Interesting facts about social media as an advertising tool

Nearly two billion people have access to the internet world over. Seven out of ten of these internet users read blogs on a regular basis with 45 per cent of them running their own blogs. Over 40 per cent of active internet users have signed up for an RSS feed with 57 per cent of them on social network. Think about this: 75 percent of Americans are subscribed to at least one social networking site. 66 per cent of all active internet users regularly visit social networking sites and are dependant on these sites as their primary source of news and information. Facebook users spend over 80 million hours a day on the site.
9 out of 10 social media subscribers strongly feel every business ought to have a presence on social media.
Doesn’t the statistics tell it all? Social media is certainly the place to be if you want your business to get recognized.
Social media websites are developed with very interactive and user friendly tools that any business can exploit as part of its structured marketing and communication strategy.
Through a social media network, your business is able to connect to a local and global audience through personal selling, advertising, PR as well as brand awareness. The interactive nature of these sites enable businesses to receive direct feedback from their customers which leads to establishment of a mutual loyalty as well as development of products and services which are tailored to the specific needs of the customers.
Social media is readily accessible to millions of users around the world. This creates a golden opportunity for businesses to raise awareness on their brands while facilitating interaction with consumers. Running marketing campaigns on these networks is equally relatively cheap thereby creating a huge ROI to the business.
 Article by  Hasse Andre Johnsgard.
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