Business news. Social media has now become an important part of the marketing strategy for all companies, whether it’s a start-up business or a high profile business, everyone wants a piece of it and their presence to have an impact on the internet.
Social media is basically interacting with people and creating, sharing, exchanging information, services, feedback on various different online platforms.
The internet is made up of many online platforms where people can interact with brands, companies or virtually anyone out there in the virtual world. Social media is different from traditional marketing, as most of the advertising or content presentation is done online by companies and businesses.
eMarketer estimates that more than 50% of the UK population will use social networks climbing to 55% in 2017 and the bulk of the current UK social media users are ages 18 to 44, 1 so if the social media users rate will increase in these numbers, it definitely is a big market for companies to tap into and expose their brand to all these social media savvy customers or users.
In the current marketing climate, social media plays an important role for start-up businesses, as it’s a very cost effective way of reaching their target audiences. The amount of money spend to do social media marketing is way much less than the amount spend to do traditional marketing.
Social media networks can be classified into the following types:
– Blogs and microblogs (e.g. Twitter)
– Video sites and content communities (e.g. YouTube)
– Social Networking sites (e.g. Facebook)
– Free to use platforms and collaborative projects (e.g. Wikipedia)
– Virtual gaming (e.g. World of Warcraft)
– Virtual chat and social worlds (e.g. Second Life)
All these networks form the social media channel as a whole on the internet and it is all set to grow further.
Reference:
- Ed Cowen, UK Social Network User Trends – Social is the new normal, eMarketer, 2013.
