How Social Media Is Changing Advertising Models - Essay Example

As the users of social media keep increasing, and as many people shift to the digital technology, the advertising models keep on changing. As evident in todays society social media use is changing the world in almost all aspects, the social media is filled with marketing messages and ads. This means the start of digital technology; specifically the social media, the impacts of the advertising models have been inevitable. Contrary to the past, the advertising models now focus on spreading the right messages to their customers using social media (How Social Media Impacts Brand Marketing). Marketers currently use social media to catch up with the digital customers, letting go the traditional advertising models, and adopting the new ones that involve marketing online via the social media. It is evident that the digital migration, specifically the current use of social media does have a growing role in marketing that changes the advertising models, this in turn has implications on how channels, consumers, and companies perform. Unlike in the past, customers can now give their feedbacks about a certain product, feedback visible to other agents, these agents include the channel partners, the competitors, and even other companies. The main impacts on the advertising models include the fact that social media allows reviews about certain products (online reviews and ratings) impact different metrics. These metrics include the brand evaluations, consumer ratings, the company performance, consumer purchase conversion rates, and the organizations value. Many of the new advertising models adopted by many organizations include "customer feedbacks," in the past the customers did not have much freedom to give feedbacks about a certain product (Evans). Currently, social media for advertising the customers the freedom to rate a certain product that to some extent defines the major characteristics of a firm. The past advertising models focused on the four Ps, social media to some extent brings in another P, which stands for the "people," which is deeper, broader, and more profound than the consumer targeting is. Social media changes the way people interact among themselves, they play a major role as creators, advocated, critics, transmitters, and transformers of messages. Not long ago, the introduction of TVs in the industry changed the advertising models used in the past, but the introduction of the internet, social media, and the use of mobile phones made them even better. The online social environments, including the social Medias do play important roles in changing the dynamics of advertising models. Social media comes hand in hand with communication, the component of communication helps business organizations create relationships prosper, and strengthens the effectiveness of these organizations. Social media affects greatly the way business organizations communicated with their customers, even with these the organizations needs to level up with the demands from customers even within the social Medias. As research shows, in the 1920s, the advertising percentage (GDP) hovered between 1% to 3%, however as the years passes the range increases as technology advances. Over the years before the introduction of the social media, the era marks a period of evolution in relation to the consumerism of media and information. These eras marks the use of the ‘print media which include the pamphlets, magazines, and newspapers, an improvement came in the marketing industry with the usage of radios for adverts. Later the advertising models adapted to "moving images" with the introduction of televisions and cinema, however in all the cases none of the advertising models considered the PEOPLE or the customers feedbacks as the social media does (Social Media and Advertising). The introduction of the internet combined the components of the "print media" and those of the "moving images" in one. This is because the internet combined both the visual and the audio and brought about the elements of personalization and connectivity. As a result the marketing industry had to improvise the models and bring in new models that matched the demands from the customers in the digital world, (personalization and connectivity are important aspects of a successful advertisement). The internet, specifically the social media helped break down the oligopolistic pricing power and the costs barriers enjoyed by the traditional media that is the radios, the prints, and the broadcast TV. In addition to the changing advertising models the social media forced the revision of the advertising budgets at the micro level, this resulted in the movement of money out of the existing traditional media into the digital technologies and areas such as the "direct marketing." The whole concept of social media changed the advertising business; it resulted in the migration of the traditional advertising models to the new digital advertising models (Close). In this era the social media provides a platform f or advertising, it makes advertising easier, in that analyzing the customer feedbacks is easier that in the "printed media" era. Research shows that in the year 2010, social media advertising surpassed the use of newspapers in advertising. However, in the past, the online advertisements still resembled the traditional adverts, these included the simple display formats that include the use of banners and rich media, and this changed over the years. Companys adapted to the new model, as it was cheaper than the past model and as t targeted a larger group (from the fact that almost the whole world used the social media) (Tuten and Solomon). The increase of the people that use the social media meant that online advertising targeted more customers than in the past, for example, an ad on Facebook targets the consumer all through the world. The social media constantly keeps on growing and attracting more and more customer, social media started out as a mode for people to communicate and connect with each other. However, this changed; currently the uses of social media are past communication and connecting. Successful managers must understand that the social media has more positive impacts than the negative impacts, especially in advertising. The number of people that use the social media channels keep on growing dramatically, also more and more people currently use the social media to grow their businesses and also build relationships with people and customers all of the time. Social media advertising of marketing is one of digital world tool used to generate publicity via the social media channels. Social media advertising includes the execution and the planning of advertising campaigns through the social media channels. On of an important component in management is that organizations needs to go where many clients are, in that with the increase in the number of social media users than the advertising techniques need to move from the traditional models to more digital models. The business communities must adapt to new advertising models as in this era (21st century) many people (customers) hang out in these social media channels. Currently, the social media world is inevitable, everything needed can be found in these social media from the latest news to people working online, the newspapers even use the social media to spread the news. Technology keeps on changing, more and more people are migrating to the digital world, in these, then the businesses must change their techniques and adapt to the new technique of using the social media for advertising. Social media advertising in the digital world has profound effects on the advertising industry, research shows that advertising via the social media has made more profits in the organizations than the traditional advertising (through attracting more people who give feedbacks that help in improving the organizations). Some of the changes brought by social media fall on the "target" field, in the past, adverts reaching the desired groups were not easy. Traditional targeting frustrated the organizations; the rise of the social media, however, ensured the creation of a "highly efficient marketplace," social media marketing model makes it easier to reach a larger group faster than the use of the traditional advertising models. The main reason why targeting works easily and efficiently on the social media is because the advertisers receive data and feedback from their customers. While using the social media people (customers) generate data about their tastes and preferences simultaneously, through these the advertisers focus on reaching the ideal demographics and at the same time spend less on wide net advertising through the use or traditional advertising models. With social media advertisers benefit from the low prices as compared to the use of the traditional advertising models, social media also reduces the competition for the set of inventories. Another beneficial tool associated with social media advertising apart from ‘targeting is effectiveness and interactivity. Interactivity was among the major reasons for the creation of the social media, it describes a two or more that two-way relationship between two or more individuals. With every time, an individual (customer) spends in the social media, then he or she generated information about his or her tastes and preferences. When an organization advertises its products in the social media, then it is easier to collect data about the product from the feedback generated by the customers, advertisers may then use this information to better their ads. Effectiveness is the level of sensory engagement under which a consumer or a customer shares with an advertisement. The social media ensures the provision of active user experience through the movement of the cursors as opposed to the past passive act of watching televisions and reading newspapers. Social media changes the advertising model as offers a variety of options of advertising formats, these formats includes the audio, the display, and the videos. Through the engagement of the consumers with the advertisements then there is ‘measurability for the product. In that through the social media, the customers can demonstrate their ‘intent to buy or their ‘dislike towards a particular product with an advertisement (Evans). Measurability is also another beneficial tool within the digital world revolving around social media; this is because the social media in advertising offers an organization the ability to gauge their success on another level. That is unlike gauging their success only with success, with social media the companies can gauge their successes with customer satisfaction levels through the feedback they get. In the past, there were varying degrees of measurability, and it was difficult to measure the success in terms of customer satisfaction than in the digital world. In traditional advertisement models, there were limitations towards how the customers research, share, and discover new information about products and brands unlike in the social media advertising model. Research shows that currently 60% of the consumers reaching for a certain product discovered about it through the use of social network sites. The active social media users usually read the reviews about a product online before going ahead to purchase it; also, the customers give back their reviews about the product online. Due to this digital generation then the organizations are forced to turn to the social media for advertising than in the past where many turned to the printed media (Social Media and Advertising). The social media changes the advertising models as it provides an improved platform for the customers to express their loyalty to the products, the brands, and the services, unlike the traditional advertising models. This sharing of loyalty through the social media does not only benefit the organization; it does benefit the customers, this is because the customers receive discounts. In most cases when using the social media for researching brands and products the consumers follow the recommendations from the family and friends most (research shows that 2 out of 3 that use the social media for research are influenced by the advertising with a social context). The social media also protects brands in that some of the consumers using the social media comment of a product to protect companies. Customers use the social media as it helps them engage with the brands at a level that favors the customers (Meyer). Social media does change the advertising models in different ways; however, the most change within the concept of social media advertising is related to the feedbacks given by the customers. Unlike the traditional models of newspapers, social media advertising eases the concept of advertising; also, social media advertising is much cheaper than those traditional advertising models (Tuten and Solomon). Works Cited Close, Angeline. Online consumer behavior: theory and research in social media, advertising, and e-tail. New York: Routledge, 2012. Evans, David S. "The Online Advertising Industry: Economics, Evolution, And Privacy." Journal of Economic Perspectives (n.d.): 37-60. "How Social Media Impacts Brand Marketing." Newswire (n.d.). 14 June 2015. . Kirchoff, S. "Advertising Industry in the Digital Age." Congressional (2011). Meyer, Marc. "Give More and Get More out of Social Media." (n.d.). 14 June 2015. . "Social Media and Advertising." Social Media and Strategic Communications (2013). Sridhar, Shrihari and Raji Srinivasan. "Social influence effects in online product ratings." Journal of marketing (2012): 70-88. Tuten, Tracy L and Michael R Solomon. Social media marketing. Boston: Pearson, 2013. Read More