Saturday, March 1, 2014

Blog #7: The Effectiveness of Social Media


A lot of people consider our generation to be addicted to social media. We are constantly checking our phones, responding to texts, and catching up on the latest news with our Facebook friends. To some, this is a curse. But to the mom and pop stores of the world, this is a big coup. This allows them to get their name out there without having to spend billions of dollars in advertising. Some would consider this an evening of the playing field between large and small companies.

Word-of-mouth marketing is probably one of the most effective forms of marketing. If you really like a product, you’re going to want to tell your friends about how awesome it is and do everything you can to convince them that they need this product. For companies, this is huge. They know that if they can provide customers with a really impressive product, people will want to spread the word. Thus, they will be getting word out about their product without having to spend any money to promote in advertising.
Facebook provides an alternative route to word-of-mouth marketing. Even the smallest companies can set up a Facebook page and start promoting their brand. This will cost them little money and can spread word very quickly. I learned recently in my marketing class that once a person has liked a company on Facebook, the website automatically has the permission to promote that company in Facebook friends’ news feeds. Because of technology such as this, word can spread very quickly on site such as Facebook and Twitter.

The internet can also be effective in promoting companies. Websites that make money off of the ads they post can look into your browsing history to find sites that you visit often. They can pull that information and use it to find which companies you would be interested in seeing ads from on their site.
Both small and large companies use social media as a way to market their brand. It provides them with a way to promote their brand without spending lots of money to get the word out there. Word travels fast online and companies can use this to their advantage. Just like talking up a product face-to-face, people use social media to give a review to a product. If someone is really satisfied with a product, they will go to social media to tell their friends just how great it is. But this can also take a negative turn. If someone has had a bad experience with a product or service, they will also turn to social media to rant about how bad it was.

I truly feel as though social media is a way the even the playing field between large and small companies. It provides companies with a cheap tool to spread the word about their brand. Social media can also be a tool used in a very effective form of marketing: word-of-mouth.

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