Advertising in Social Media

Over the past several years our economy has been struggling, to say the least. The economies struggles reflect on everyone. Most people had to change and somewhat scale down their lifestyles in order to cope with the struggling economy. The people began to realize that things were going to be tough for a while and began to prioritize their income. This effected how companies chose to advertise their products. Social media was seen as the most effective and appealing outlet to advertise to the new money conscious consumer base.

The economic downturn over the last few years has hurt print advertising. Consumers prefer to get free product information on social media sites, opposed to going out to the store to purchase a newspaper or magazine. All though it is more expensive to advertise on social media sites than it is to advertise using other media outlets, companies get a much greater return on their investment from social media. The vastly growing consumer base and the high return on investment make social media outlets very effective advertising platforms, despite the struggling economy.

Twitter and Facebook are among the top social media outlets that companies use for advertising their brand. Twitter advertises through “tweets” these are short messages describing what the company is trying to offer. Tweets are effective because consumers are more likely to read them because of their short length. These tweets can also be linked to the companies website or other social media accounts, allowing for greater consumer interaction. Twitter generates excellent return on investment because consumers have to seek out a company in order to follow their tweets.

After a consumer is following a company, the company’s tweets show up on the consumer’s home page. This allows a product to be promoted in real time, keeping it fresh in the consumers mind. Facebook offers a more detailed advertising platform compared to Twitter. Companies can create a Facebook page that allows them to post videos, links, photos, and more detailed descriptions of the product. This is effective because it allows the consumer to see and interact with what they are getting. Facebook also allows for consumers to give their personal feedback about the product in the form of wall posts.

This generates talk and conversation between different facebook users and also between consumers and the company itself. Feedback like this helps the company create more effective advertisements or improve on their products. Companies can also create facebook event pages about upcoming sales, events, drink specials, food specials, fundraisers, or anything else. Social Media networks allow companies to advertise their product on an individual level. This is exciting because it gives the consumer an opportunity to interact directly with a particular company, via tweets, blog posts, or facebook posts.

Direct interaction instills a sense of loyalty to the consumer, which generates good word of mouth reviews. This word of mouth advertising from social media sites comes in the form of “reposts” and “retweets” of comments and posts made by the company. By repeating these messages, more people are able to see what the company has to offer which brings more traffic to the product and company. This creates a larger following and brings in potential customers. The availability of social media apps on cell phones brings great excitement to the advertising world.

Cell phones keep consumers linked to social media at all times. This is great for both the consumer and the product. The consumer can be instantly updated with information about a product or events that a company is hosting with real time information. With this technology, advertisements are always in sight. This is a key component to making sure the consumer always knows about products availability, relevance, usefulness, and its capabilities. It is also very useful in reminding consumers about brand events or sales.

All though social media is a great and effective tool for advertising, it does have some drawbacks that can be very costly. Social Media accounts for millions of dollars in company damages every year. By the way things go viral on the Internet, the smallest mishaps can blow up to be a big controversy. For example, there was a viral video on YouTube that portrayed a Domino’s employee doing very inappropriate things with pizza ingredients. This obviously did not sit well with the public and really hurt Domino’s consumer base.