Social Networking Program - Book Report/Review Example

Social Networking Program Executive Summary The two reasons why social media became a hot selling cake after 2009 was: The global recession The increasing demand of social networking among the customers. The companies have increased their expenditure in online sales over past five years. The concept of viral marketing is quite old. The marketers used to send emails and other online advertisements to popularize the brand. But after 2009, more and more companies came forward to take the opportunity of facebook, twitter, MySpace or Flicker. Though one cannot guarantee the success in this form of promotion, yet the marketers have understood that social networking takes time and have realized the potential of social media. It is a tested and proved fact now that resources devoted through social media can surely bring success to the company. As more and more people are spending hours surfing internet, marketers are utilizing this aspect in marketing their products. So the small online marketing companies such Book Bunkers can utilize the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or MySpace. The company can register in these social networking sites and create a company page. It can insert the like buttons of this social website page in their own website. This would help to increase the number of likes and popularity of the company. Table of Contents Executive Summary 1 Social Media 3 Social Media Networking Providers 3 Utility of Social Networking 5 Web 2.0 6 Social Media Marketing Strategy 6 References 8 Social Media These days’ Social media has become a worldwide phenomenon. The individuals as well as companies round the world are experiencing success through utilizing social media. The early modes of media were television, magazines, radio or newspapers. It was a one way form of communication. Social media includes a group of internet based technologies which are built on the foundation of Web 2.0. It involves creating and exchanging user-generated information. It can be accessible by everyone and is a convenient way of communication. The popularly known, honeycomb framework concludes that social media focuses mainly on sharing, relationships, conversation, reputation and group. These blocks help in understanding the target audience in social media. For example the users of LinkedIn are more interested in reputation, identity and professional requirement. There are many companies who formulate their own social networking site to link the departments and encourage flow of communication between employees and departments on an informal platform. It we see the statistics of the patents in US in relation to social media, we will see that there has been a rapid growth in the patented applications covering new technologies in relation to social media (Safko, 2012). Social Media Networking Providers Social Networking is no longer considered a child's play. Companies are taking it seriously and it is touching the lives of people round the world. Even though there are thousands of social networking sites opening up each day, but every social site is not worth joining. The main reason would be that one would see the same group of friends in the other sites too. The reason one should keep in mind while selecting the social site are the user base, the features and the ergonomics. The various features on the basis of which social sites are chosen by companies are: Profiles, Security Features, Demographics, Privacy Settings, Groups and communities, Reach, Networking. Few of the best social networking sites that were chosen in a survey by the users are: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Hi5, Friendster, Orkut, Badoo, Meetup, Stumbleupon, Digg, Ning and NetLog. Among the following best social networking sites of 2011, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and MySpace are used by maximum people round the world. So we can say that they have the maximum reach (Who’s watching? n. d.). Let us now see the background of the best social media sites in brief: Facebook Facebook is a social networking website that came into existence in the year 2004 under the leadership of Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommates. It ranks first among the social media sites in the world. Facebook has more than 300,000,000 users round the world. Twitter Twitter is the next most popular website. It ranks second among the social media sites in the world. It offers social media networking and micro blogging services. It also enables users to read and send messages of other users also known as tweets. There are about 44,500,000 users using twitter round the globe. MySpace MySpace ranks fourth among the social networking sites round the world. The company’s headquarter is in California. It is one of the most popular networking sites in United States. According to some sources MySpace has also overtaken Facebook in US in terms of popularity. There are about 1000 employees in MySpace. There are about 263,920,102 users of MySpace. LinkedIn LinkedIn is a social media site which mainly involves business or professional networking. It was founded in the year 2002 and launched in the market in 2003. It is used in more than 200 countries round the world. It has more than 80,000,000 million. Utility of Social Networking Social media is considered to be of great value among the marketers. About 90 percent of the marketers considered social media as an important part of their marketing strategy. So we can say that social media can be utilized in many ways. Social media can be used as a tool for communication by the teachers and students for learning process. As most of the students are using social media so teachers are also trying to utilizes such techniques. This also indicates that the generation X as well as generation Y can be captured through social media marketing. The organizations such as NGO which does not have huge capital to promote their cause can use such forms of media for promotion. The social network provides employment to many people round the world. As a huge number of social networking sites and companies are coming up, so people interested in these areas are getting opportunity to utilize their skills and last but not the least, the online marketing companies and online retailers are hugely benefiting from social media networking at a minimal cost. The reach of the social media is large. People round the world are using them. Moreover, it is accessible at free of cost. None of the social media on the internet are paid. LinkedIn have a paid premium version too. But basic utilities are free. To utilize social media, complex technical skill or specialized knowledge is not required. Though large companies and business houses totally depended on online marketing do recruit specialized people to take care of social media marketing. But small business houses can utilize such platforms without much technical knowledge. So it is easy to use. Web 2.0 It is a form of web application which facilitates information sharing. It was designed to allow the users to communicate with each other. The main features of web 2.0 are tagging, bookmarking, and providing self-publishing platforms. It offers great opportunity for marketers to capture customers. Many marketers are utilizing it to communicate with the customers for product development, and promotional activities. Social Media Marketing Strategy Social media acts as a great equalizer. The big companies can utilize the social media and promote themselves without spending money and small companies can become popular instantly. There are many small companies who have posted videos of their company or created small advertisement with the resources available within the company and uploaded them on YouTube or Facebook. Those videos received huge number of likes and the companies became popular instantly. Many companies are receiving up to 10,000 -50,000 or more likes in facebook. Companies post the pictures of their products on flicker to receive great number of fans. The basic motive of utilizing media is to promote, lets people know what the company has to sell. The social media serves the purpose. This study is based on utilizing social media networking for promoting online business. Here the client is Book Bunker, who wanted to know about social media networking and its utility in marketing. The owners also wanted to know about the strategies to utilise the tool of social networking for their online book store. In this regard it can be said that, whether the business is small, medium or large, it should be always kept in mind that the customers are vigorously using the social media every day. So there is no reason of not utilizing such a medium to capture mass of customers. The cost for promotion through social networking sites is almost nothing and it is very easy to understand and handle. This will surely affect the financial status of the business. The tools used for such promotions are: Blogging, Permalinks, Comments, Themes, etc. Other than this, company can create pages in twitter, facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace, the most popular ones. These pages will have the company details, the products pictures would be in display (Zarrella, 2009, p. 7-9). References Safko, L. (2012). The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Who’s watching? (no date). On social networking sites, you may be giving away more than you think. Retrieved from http://www.whoswatchingcharlottesville.org/social.html. Zarrella, D. (2009). The Social Media Marketing Book. California: O'Reilly Media, Inc. Read More