Social Media Advertising

Now more than ever, small businesses can promote themselves online by targeting customers and expanding their networks, often for little or no cost. Businesses can promote themselves through a variety of techniques such as targeting customers by demographics, contributing to online discussions and drawing attention to new services.

Advertising in the 21st century has become very versatile because of various online social websites like Facebook and Twitter, along with other blog atmosphere websites like Pinterest and Craigslist. In the last decade, the explosion of technological advances has produced unprecedented events in the history of mankind. One of them is the Internet and its conversion into a new medium for marketing and the use of social communication in advertising. Inevitably, the internet has changed our lives. In traditional media, newspapers, radio and television can cause information overload and change the perception of the audience (Janoschka, 2004).

The Internet is not exempt from this danger, but has the potential to do something different, because it can directly reach the target audience and interact with it. A function of memory is to forget, especially information that is not significant. The challenge of advertising is to make you remember the ads. The purpose is to sell. The good publicity convinces the viewer to buy the product. This requires creating an attractive brand image and strengthening it with each ad. Advertising employs both verbal and nonverbal elements that are composed to fill specific space and time formats determined by the sponsor.

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Advertising reaches people through a channel of communication referred to as a medium. Today, technology enables advertising to reach its’ target audience efficiently through the Internet. In the 1990’s, the Internet became a major part of American society and is the fastest growing type of advertising. Its more than just banner ads, it means large format interactive ads, search-engine marketing, creating special promo videos for web download and supporting TV ads with online sites. Communication among people all over the world is effortless, and information on almost any topic is just a few keystrokes away. As a public global platform open to all kinds of information, entertainment, and communication, one of which is online advertising, it has become the latest mass medium. ” (Janoschka, 2004). Internet technology allows delivering the right message to the right person at the right time while helping advertisers to reach their audience. From the moment the surfer enters the web to search for information, pop ups appear allowing the audience to subscribe to mailing lists that will send continuous news, promotions, articles, etc. , depending on  their preferences.

This allows the seller to better reach its target and maintain continuous communication in the shortest time possible. Most online ads do not come to you as an individual, but by your interests in various subjects, your location or, in general, by your behavior during internet navigation. In most countries, it is possible to divide the audience by geographic area based on IP address, which facilitates advertising companies that offer products and services in those areas. Websites use demographic data to learn more their audience.

When registering with a portal or website, you normally provide certain personal information such as your age, gender, hobbies, etc. With this information, websites offer relevant content and advertisements based on the information provided. Some companies specialize in a data collection process known as behavioral advertising which matches ads to the interests of users based on their surfing habits. As users browse, advertisers collect data on their online activity: sites visited, time spent on each ad shown, ads that were clicked, when and how often you click on the banners.

Today, cookies are tools that allow advertisers to target advertising to specific audiences and segments. Compared with traditional media the cost of internet advertising is extremely low, and because of its effectiveness and its high potential for growth, it is ideal for small and medium businesses that do not have large resources to invest in other media.

Then the questions arise: how to advertise online? What is the correct way to? There is no magic formula that a media planner can you use but here are some suggestions. Due to the internet being global, the network gives the possibility to reach all audiences in the world.

With internet advertising one must include, email, search engine registration, and banners which are ads with motion graphics which are located in different sites of the network as a gateway input to a website. Using email as a form of advertisement is easy and free. All that is required is to sign up for email with your internet service provider or a free mail server such as Yahoo mail or Gmail and send emails to the potential customers with offers or information on products. According to Arens, "Google is the most popular destination on the web reaching an astonishing 40 percent of all Web users each day".

Search engines are only responsible for registering portal websites and their content and then delivery the results to the users who made requests for information. The following is an example of how a search engine works. A user uses the search engine of their choice and asks to find companies that export tomatoes. The search engine will send in response with a list of websites of companies that fulfill the request and then the user can enter the different sites to see what they need and select the company that meets their requirements.

The banner system is one means of internet advertising that is more effective: You can choose the categories to be displayed and include descriptive words to detect if the user is looking for that particular product. The banners are similar to the rotating banner but the difference is that the user can interact with them. As in any project, internet advertising should begin by making a strategic plan. The result will be better planning of a website and the ability to maintain the user's attention and customer loyalty.

The presence of internet advertising will be an excellent complement to traditional media advertising and may end up becoming one of the priorities of advertisers. For now, more and more ads in the media show the direction taken by advertisers along with customer care and other services of interest. User forums, blogs and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are invaluable resources for monitoring companies' reputations and interests of consumers of services and products. Facebook is the largest social network in the world with more than 500 million people connected to each other. Facebook has not surpassed Yahoo! o be the second most popular site on the web behind Google. Facebook's popularity has increased due to the ability to connect individuals without geographical barriers. The uniqueness of Facebook allows people to meet virtually to discuss and share their interests with each other (Arens, Schaefer, Weigold, 2011). There are 60 million status updates posted every day in over 65 languages. Facebook's audience is far superior to any other mass medium like TV channels, radio or press Facebook has revolutionized advertising not only by the size of its audience, but also by the engineering behind its operation.

It allows an analytical and intelligent marketing to reach the precise target audience through market segmentation according to gender, age, geographic location, country, city and locality, educational level, likes, interests, product preferences, favorite activities, favorite programs and language. For example, it is now possible to know without extensive market research which countries have the largest number of youth between 18 and 35 years and who love rock music, football and a certain brand of beer.

Having a presence in social media is a must have for most brands. Facebook created Pages for businesses to post information about their services or products. When using a search engine, your Facebook Page will be one of the main results of your search. Consumers have tremendous power and influence on a brand and trust recommendations of other consumers they don’t know. According to Barefoot, "Groups and applications gain popularity one friend of a friend of a friend at a time" (Barefoot, pg 174).

The result is friends becoming fans or joining groups encouraging them to purchase a product or service that is being discussed or advertised. Twitter is still a very popular social media networking site, although adoption is declining. Compared to Facebook, Twitter has 50 million tweets created each day and the average Twitter account has an average of 300 followers. Social networking is important to marketers because it gives them the opportunity to show customers that they are listening to what they have to say about a brand or product and respond accordingly.

The possibilities are endless. It is common for organizations to provide direct consumer messages daily on Twitter, maintain a Facebook page, or depending on your industry also a profile on MySpace. Social networking has completely changed the way we communicate with each other. Everyone has a voice and an outlet to reach millions of people instantly with either Facebook or Twitter. The internet is an advertising medium with a great future because it is interactive can be customized or delivered to users according to their preferences.

There is immediate feedback and can communicate directly with users to resolve their doubts and concerns and with a global reach. The internet brings great potential for use in the field of marketing, market research, direct marketing, sales promotion, trade mail and, of course, advertising communication. As a society we must be prepared to confront and take advantage of the opportunities this new technology gives us.

References

1. Arens,W. , Schaefer, D. , & Weigold, M. (2012). Advertising. McGraw Hill Irwin. New York

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