Marketing
is “the total of
activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to
the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.”
(“Dictionary.com”) Every business’s goal is to be successful and to identify
the needs of their consumers. The
“stone-age” marketing, like I will call it, is how we used to market. That was going
out and doing survey’s, questionnaires, putting out billboards, ads in the
newspaper, and spreading the word anyway you could. It took lots of time and money
to bring in only certain demographics and segments of the total potential
consumers. Things have changed and have advanced to the ability to talk with
customers in minutes, target the needs of the customers, learn of problems instantly,
and business’s have adapted marketing techniques to target different segments
all with the tool of social networking. Social Networking has provided
marketers instant contact with consumers, helps brand building, and blogs have
become a phenomenal tool for expanding business strategies and adapting to the
needs of the customers.
Never
did we imagine ten years ago that we would be shopping, communicating, and
marketing through the Internet. To think of all the advancements that the
Internet has undergone is amazing and to see how much progress it has made in
such a short amount of time is such a massive difference from where we used to
be. With Facebook and Twitter, to just name two, social marketing has become a
major part of how we communicate with one another and has started to gain
massive popularity in marketing products. It is free to use, easily accessible
through the Internet, and gives optimal speed to contact customers anytime of
the day. “Social media has completely changed our work, and when executed well,
it has positive implications for multiple divisions, from consumer insights to
product development/innovation to marketing to corporate reputation,” says
Hawks.” (Whalig, 2011) It has taken so much of the hassle out of marketing to
such a wide range of consumers. Making it so much easier to market to different
segments in such a short amount of time and on little to no money. There is a
newly developed site called Pinterest that you can now share different blogs,
products, recipes, or any link on the web that you desire to share. It has
completely changed the way that I personally look for new ideas, recipes,
products, and health advice. Many businesses have even gotten into it and
created there own Pinterest to share products with them and it goes straight
into a newsfeed that you can follow and get new products everyday to look at.
All of these segments of social networking allows for communication as
consumers and business owners/marketers to get in contact with one another in
such a short amount of time and keep in contact on a daily basis. This provides
the consumer their own way to customize their shopping experience. It has also given
the way for brand building success.
Brand
building can spread so much faster on the Internet and when it gets out there
it can seriously spread like wildfire. Through the social media networks like
Facebook, Twitter, and even Pinterest it can be as simple as hitting the “like”
button for one, seeing a tweet, or repining a pin on your board that others are
following. Brian Winterfeldt points out the “Use of a company’s trademarks and logos will create a much
stronger association with the company than stating the employer’s name in a
profile.” (Winterfeldt, 2012) If someone sees the logo or brand image on so
many different social networks or blogs in the Internet they are bound to go
and do their own research and find the main web page the company has for this
product. They will want to know what the “buzz” is all about. People all across the world use the Internet
on a daily basis and it is the perfect way to get in contact with them on that
daily basis. They are more prone to see a company’s logo through the Internet
rather than a billboard or even a TV commercial because people now have the
ability to screen what advertisements they are viewing. Another important
aspect of social networking includes that of the blogosphere, like bloggers
like to call it.
Blogs
have grown from the “journal” they were made to be into a way that anyone can
express there opinions on products, share recipes, ideas, lifestyles, or just
about anything of a persons life. People actually make careers out of blogging
on the Internet. Businesses will actually send them products to review so they
will get their products out there, which is quite effective. They also build
branding and optimize their web search when they do this. Personally I have
come across so many blogs that I have actually gone out to get products that
they use because of their personal experience with the products. I trust
personal experiences over a business’s review and idea of what a product should
do. These people share their experiences, opinions and then others come and
share their own, it really is a little community of people that share what they
know and it is a perfect way to spread products and ideas through
“word-of-mouth” which is the best and most effective way to share information
with others without it being face-to-face.
Social
networking has created a way to communicate with friends and family, but also
has given everyone a way to share products, ideas, and information that
otherwise would take forever to find. It has given new meaning to the way
marketing is done and the way customers can change the way they are marketed
to. Customers now have a voice, they share the information and just how fast
they can spread good reviews they can spread bad, they govern the way they are
marketed to and what products they accept out there on the market. Instead of
marketers choosing what we need and want, consumers now can show them and tell
them what they want and need. Marketers can be active in communicating with
customers, can get there branding out there, and learn from blogs all around
the Internet and even offer those bloggers products to get more reviews and
info out their to the consumers. Social networking has truly changed everything
about the way we market, shop, and choose to communicate with one another.
Dictionary.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/marketing?s=t
Roberts,
M. L. (2008). Internet Marketing. In M. L. Roberts, Internet Marketing (2nd Edition
ed.). Mason, Ohio, United States of America: Thomson.
Whalig,
H. (2011, May 12). Mashable. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2011/05/12/social-media-change-marketing/
Winterfeldt,
B. J. (2012). Building your brand through social media. Computer and Internet
Lawyer, 29(2), 22-31 http://search.proquest.com/docview/918827811?accountid=41205
