Why Marketing Through Social Media is Effective - Article Example

Social Media and Marketing With the rise of the internet as a strongly influential media format, many companies have started using it to their advantage. It is a win-win situation since it could reach to a wider audience and is relatively cost-effective as compared to other methods of advertising such as the use of billboards or television ads (Botha 84). Numerous people go online for just about everything, and this includes social interaction as well as sales, even more than those that go to watch television or go out driving, which makes online advertising much more flexible and inclusive of audiences.

Products and services can be spread to others through status posts and pictures, thus the advertising companies get the benefit of passive advertising at a very low cost (88). For example, in the global social networking website Facebook, large companies took the advantage of both interacting with their consumers as well as getting their feedback and photos of the product to gain a wider range of audience. The more people “like” their pages, it is correlated with many people becoming more aware of their products, which spells as a success in their advertising campaign in Facebook.

Using this network in advertising products can be an effective strategy in the promotion of new products and showcasing best-selling items to others, which is why many companies were already on this bandwagon of advertising by making their own product page known among network users.Many companies created their own pages in the social networking giant, and a blog post in 2010 shows which companies and products gained the most number of “likes” among its users (Porterfield). The blog explains the successful marketing strategies of the top 10 Facebook product pages, two of which, Red Bull Page (ranked number 1) and The Twilight Saga Page (ranked number 9) would be discussed here.

First is how Red Bull was able to gain top rank in 2010 for number of “likes”, which was accomplished by numerous interactive links in the page such as games and video-uploads, as well as the use of attention-grabbing images for fans to “like” their page (Porterfield). The company did not use too many texts, but rather focused on creative advertising so as to grab the attention of social networking users. Because Red Bull removed the complexities of too much reading and instead used interactive and creative strategies of gaining the interest of internet citizens, they were able to gain many fans and rank number one in the list.

Red Bull as an energy beverage is not a seasonal product and could have fans anytime and anywhere, thus the strategy used for advertising does not need to drastically change. However, for fleeting products such as movies, strategies in keeping fans need to be different and much more aggressive. In the Twilight Saga Page for example, aside from putting in many photos from behind-the-scenes and actual film footage to rein in more fans, they also promote the movie by letting fans interactively share their thoughts and giving incentives such as winning free tickets to premieres or other premium products (Porterfield).

Letting the fans speak up about the movie helps them feel much more engaged in passively advertising the movie as well as being connected not just with other Twilight fans but also among other non-fans, which helps in advertising the movie to those which have not tried seeing it yet. The group maintaining the page only needs to check for posts every now and then while the discussions of the fans about the movie enable the page to gain wider audiences through their active sharing in their groups and networks, as well as catching the interest of people who may be questioning why the saga is so well-received.

In choosing the internet as a platform for advertising, many companies can gain additional profit by harnessing the power of social media interactions and through creativity in their interactions with potential and current consumers since the internet is not limited to a single geographical location, and by doing so the companies allow their consumers to advertise their product at a lower cost while at the same time reaching wider audience backgrounds. Works CitedBotha, Elsamari, and Adam J. Mills.

“Managing New Media: Tools for Brand Management in Social Media”. in Online Consumer Behavior: Theory and Research in Social Media, Advertising and E-tail. Ed. Angeline G. Close. New York:Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. 83-100. Print.Porterfield, Amy. Top 10 Facebook Pages and Why Theyre Successful. 31 August 2010. 15 February 2013 . Web.