Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Is social media marketing a fad or here to stay? What indicators suggest that social media is permanent vs. a fad?




“Years to reach 50 million users:
Radio 38 years,
TV 13 years,
Internet 4 years,
IPod 3 years,
… FACEBOOK ADDED OVER 200 MILLION USERS IN LESS THAN 1 YEAR”


I think social media marketing is not a fad but a novelty here to stay. 

Do you know a lot of people who do not have any Facebook / Twitter / MySpace accounts? Not so much…
Let’s try something else: this new phone that has just came out, what do you do? Maybe you write a new facebook status “what you think about this new phone?” or you go on forums to check out what the first buyers think about it?
This is word of mouth and according to this video 78% of consumers trust what their peers recommend (unlike 14% for an advertisement).
I do not think that it is just a trend. The companies earn a lot of money thanks to social media marketing. This other video proves it: “Gary Vaynerchuk grew his family business from $4 million to $50 million using social media” and of course, this is just an example. Do you think that businesses would like to stop earning money? I guess no! 

Social media marketing is now a fact that so many firms work with. 
The number of companies using, for example Facebook accounts for their recruitment, are growing every day. 
Everybody is using those social websites to keep in touch with friends/family/co-workers… 

The life is so international now that we need those kinds of tools to be able to communicate with people living on the other side of the world.  

This is becoming a necessity that is why social media is permanent.

6 comments:

  1. I agree that social media in not a fad, its a game-changer. The market that will benefit the most from advertising and marketing on Facebook, Twitter and other social mediums will be the smaller company that can not afford large advertising blitzes can reach a great number by using this type of advertising.

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  2. I like your comments about the rate at which social media is growing. Also, you are exactly right about how this affecting international business. How do you think this will affect the future of online sales now that international businesses can advertise and market to overseas customers?

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  3. I agree with the facebook/twitter status example. I know that I have facebook/twitter on my phone and look at statuses posted by people every day. If I read negative post about a company or product I ultimately keep that thought in the back of my head and remember the comment each time the company or product is brought up in discussion. I've always been told that one negative comment about a product or company can reach up to ten people and a positive comment to only one person. With the advancement of social media this theory stays true but reaches more than the expected ten.

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  4. I agree that there are a number of firms branching out into the social media marketing world. It seems that many business sites I go to have a twitter or facebook account icon linked to it. When I walk into numerous stores, there is normally a sign or a flyer that says to "check us out or add us on facebook/twitter." To research businesses, I often check to see if they have a Facebook page. It's becoming a part of our technilogical world.

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  5. I agree, all of these sites are here to stay. They will not be gone anytime soon and in order for businesses to compete with each other they will have to change their way of looking at these sites. As you stated in your blog, I also wrote about how word of mouth amongst peers is the most effective more so than advertising. I believe that sites such as facebook and various other sites have helped this to become even more evident. I would be more likely to ask my friends on facebook what they thought about a new product then go to the product site, I feel as though I would get more honest answers.

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  6. To answer Rob's question - hopefully the massive growth in social media will expand our horizons and encourage international trade. Most successful companies already have an international presence but social media will allow these organizations to have a more consistent message and appeal.

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