Social Media Channels in Marketing

Social media is a group of virtual communities and networks which allow social interaction between people by means of websites that enable them to create, share and exchange information. These networks and virtual communities are for personal and private use but marketers have started using them as a very strong tool of digital advertisement, therefore social media marketing was created. In other words social media marketing is the practice of generating business through social media sites.

Marketers create content about a specific brand that attracts attention and inspires network members to share it across their network. Users spread the information through the website, instant messages, news feeds, and comments. This makes the information look like it comes from a personal, trusted, third-party source rather than the company itself. It makes the contents look like earned media rather than paid media, and the former is much more trusted among consumers and shoppers, it acts like word of mouth. Social networks also include a large amount of information about brands, products, and services which their users might be interested in. They can track the buying signals through the use of the new Semantic Analysis Technologies which also help to target relevant prospects and narrow target audience.

Popular worldwide social networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook all utilise social media marketing but Facebook is the most popular amongst private sector. Facebook owners state that they protect the privacy of their users and that they never give away any personal information to the marketers; they only provide anonymous data “so they can know how many people viewed their ad and general categories of information about them” (The Role of Advertising on Facebook). Their website explains: “For many ads we serve, advertisers may choose their audience by location, demographics, likes, keywords, and any other information we receive or infer about users” (Facebook). Here are the ways advertisers can use for targeting their prospective:

-          Demographics,  interests, hobbies, work places and education

-          Keywords and topics

-          Page “likes” such as health, religion, products and brands

-          Categories such as movies and stores

-          Behaviors, such as device usage etc.

The efficiency of Facebook advertising is so high because it is personalized to individuals based on who they are, how they interact with their friends, how they interact with brands and what brands or companies they prefer and are willing to engage with. Facebook collects internal information from their own members, but in order to maximize effectiveness, it also collects external information from corporate sources as explained in the article What You Didn’t Post, Facebook May Still Know “In late February, Facebook announced partnerships with four companies that collect lucrative behavioral data, from store loyalty card transactions and customer e-mail lists to divorce and Web browsing records”. Facebook can combine these two sources of information (internal and external), compare real-world consumer trends with virtual consumer trends, and more place web ads more accurately and effectively.

Facebook is a prime example but almost all social media sites use the same form of information collection and analysis for marketing purposes. The information they provide allows marketers to be more accurate and effective. With social media’s growing prevalence in today’s culture, marketers cannot ignore it, not only as a powerful commercial engine, but a staple in modern marketing strategy.

 

 

Work cited:

"The Role of Advertising on Facebook." Web. 29 Oct. 2014.

Advertising and Facebook content. (n.d.). Retrieved October 29, 2014.

Sengupta, S. (2013, March 25). What You Didn’t Post, Facebook May Still Know. Retrieved October 29, 2014.