Social media marketing is here to stay and can be considered a force to be reckoned with. Most of the information we receive is found via a social network. As a society, we don’t watch TV for information and instead we choose to simply pull out a cellphone or computer because these sources are a faster way for receiving the same information. In the YouTube video about social media marketing a surprising statistic about reaching viewers was provided. Looking specifically at the statistic of reaching 50 million users, it took Radio 38 years, TV 13 years, the Internet 4 years, and the IPod 3 years while it only took less than a year Facebook to reach 200 million users. Crazy right? By finding a fast way for people to link up, communicate, express and inform; social media was bound to be a huge success.
With the recent exponential growth in social media marketing for large corporate businesses, many small businesses are following their example to invest in this new type of marketing. It allows small businesses to have a more equal footing with the larger businesses. Advertisements in newspapers and magazines cost money. Larger businesses have funds to buy into advertisement and had a monopoly over smaller businesses to reach customers. Now small businesses can take advantage of free advertisement through the use of social media marketing. For example, think of a little surf shop that just opened in Myrtle Beach, NC. The business owner decides to make a Facebook page of his shop to connect with locals and advertise the fact that he has the lowest prices in town. Before he knows it he has a large line out the door full of people from all around because of the FREE advertisement he posted on Facebook.
For both large and small businesses, social media marketing allows businesses to reach customers who they would not normally be able to. Everyday communication revolves around social media and it only makes sense to reach the consumer through the resources that they use daily. The one fact that amazed me most about technological advances came from the assigned videos from last week. It is almost unbelievable that within my lifetime, 25 years down the road, cellphones will be as small as a blood cell. When this technology was first created it took a whole building to contain all of its’ parts. Technology will continue to evolve at a fast rate and the only option to try and keep up is to adapt. One of the areas that this is possible for the marketing world is to use social media to reach those who would not normally be reached by what can be considered as old fashion ways to market. Taking all of the above into consideration it makes you step back and see that technology is hitting all of us at 100 mph.
I liked your comment about how the technology is growing so fast. That is so true, before we did not have computers or cell phones and today we would not be able to live without them. I can not imagine what technology will be like in the next 10 or 20 years!!
ReplyDeleteI also agree about the fact that social media is a free advertisment and very useful for the small and/or new businesses. Actually i have a friend who just started her business in jewlery. she is young and does not have a lot of connections and enough money to invest in marketing. So she decided 2 months ago to created a Facebook page for her company, and that is working so well ! This is a very easy and cheap way to reach all kind of customers.