The Tsunami that is Social Media Marketing
“The wave is coming but are you ready?”
Social media on the internet has been around in the form of MySpace and Bebo and more recently Facebook, Linkin and Twitter. Currently they are largely used to create snippets of information about individuals and events that are broadcasted over the internet for others to see and comment on or use. Generally it has been just that – social media - comments by individuals on social activity.
However, as it is growing at a phenomenal rate, businesses are now trying to harness the potential advantages it has to build their brands and market their products and services on the internet. To get a feeling for the true scale and growth of the social media consider the following:
- By 2010 Generation Y will outnumber the baby-boomers and 96% of them have joined a social network.
- To reach 100 million users it took the Radio 38 years, TV 13 years, Internet 4 years, iPod 3 years and Facebook just 9 months!
- If Facebook were a country it would be the 4th largest in the world - based on population. (1st China, 2nd India, 3rd US, 4th Facebook)
- The fastest growing Facebook segment is 55 – 65 year old females.
- There are now over 200,000,000 blogs.
- 54% of bloggers post content on Twitter daily
Businesses are becoming interested because social media provides current information that is seen as a more trustworthy source than many other media sources. Moreover, because of the size of the audience it can be a very cost-effective method for a company to publicise information about itself. Studies show that 34% of bloggers post reviews on brands and products and that 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations whilst only 14% trust company advertisements.
Social media isn’t just a fad it’s a fundamental change in the way we communicate and companies want to use this new medium to build there company’s image and increase their sales. Like many things it is easier said than done, but for those companies who carry it out effectively then the rewards are potentially enormous.
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