Social media is more and more taking over the world. For the uninitiated, social media describes interactive media that multiple people can use to communicate and to generally interact. These use web 2.0 which describes websites that use interactive aspects to allow users to create their own content and profiles. Normally this uses PHP which is a programming language that is mostly used in just such websites. This provides the framework and allows users to edit files themselves so that they can upload profiles and photos etc, it also allows a range of social media marketing opportunities.
The whole social media movement began first of all arguably with MySpace which allowed users to make a one page website (essentially) that could be customized in a number of ways, but would almost always include photographs and personal data about that person. This allowed the first social media marketing tools and it was possible to put adverts both on the main page, and on the pages of the individual users. What made this useful was the fact that there was a specific demographic for those adverts so that the advertisers would know roughly who they were advertising to. From here many more social networking sites opened up in an attempt to compete with MySpace and offer a similar service. Specifically these were Bebo and Faceparty which each offered similar services targeted at slightly similar audiences..
What came next then was Facebook. This was a networking site that focused on the ability to upload photos, and which was marketed towards no particular groups. Facebook quickly became a household name so much so that seemingly the majority of the population in the Western world now have Facebook. This of course came with many social media marketing opportunities, and improved on these further over MySpace and its other predecessors. For example when using Facebook you can change your hobbies and interests just like most other social media sites, but Facebook innovates by taking a leaf from Google Adsense's Adwords, and allows the adverts to display while being informed by this data. As a marketer then, you can use this information to ensure that your advert reaches the right people and isn't wasted on those who don't fit into the right categories. At the same time, just like Adsense these adverts only charge when they actually get clicked meaning that no money is wasted.
Social media marketing can work in other ways too. For example Facebook allows you to create groups and fan pages, and then to invite people to these. This way you can help to create more of a viral marketing effect as people see their friends in the group and choose to do the same, and can address large groups of people at once. If you plan to use events as part of your marketing too then you can also use social media marketing to invite people to these events and reach the maximum number of people.
Social media marketing has recently found a new home in Twitter which uses just short updates to spread news. This far simpler and more direct method lends itself perfectly to mobile devices and regular updates meaning that people are on. It has been described as the 'pulse of the planet' and is just one example of the way social media is rapidly finding its way into every aspect. Now is the time to start taking the most of these new and powerful opportunities.
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