Social Media is a social instrument of communication, a website that doesn’t just give you information, but interacts with you while giving you information. This interaction can be as simple as asking for your comments or letting you vote on an article, or it can be as complex as Flixster recommending movies to you based on the ratings of other people with similar interests. Social media also employ web- and mobile-based technologies to support interactive dialogue and “introduce substantial and pervasive changes to communication between organizations, communities, and individuals (Evans, 2008).” Social media mediates human communication. People tend to work in groups. These groups could be cultural, family, work, study, or personal interests. A person is motivated to contribute valuable information to the group in the expectation that one will receive useful help and information in return. Indeed, there is evidence that active participants in online communities get more responses faster to questions than unknown participants.
Social media brings life to the internet. It gives opinions, insight, emotions, video, pictures, and most of all human interaction. I cannot understand why some companies have not adapted to this new media. Now you see where every phone and table has an app for Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Linked In, and other social networks. In fact, the Youtube app is already installed on most devices with the Google operating system. Social media is the perfect tool for businesses because it help people to socialize and congregate and it helps businesses to market at the same time. Social media tools can be used with traditional marketing techniques. This mix of tactics needs to tie into a good business plan for reaching business goals. Whether it’s “Better engage with our customers” to “Filling the top of the sales funnel”, an understanding of audience preferences and behaviors will lead to the right marketing mix. For example with Facebook and you-tube alone you can build an interest in your product.
These days and times you would shoot a video to promote yourself, a product, or your business. This has become cheap to do. You-Tube is good for everyone because Videos on You-Tube represents all the elements of multi-media: text, audio, still images, animation, video, or interactivity content forms. From there, you have a link to your video on you-tube that can be pasted anywhere. Also Facebook allows for you to paste these links from other social media outlets. . For example, Facebook offers Linked In users an option to buy further promotion on Facebook for $7. Facebook on the other hand is also an excellent social media marketing tool. Facebook has a way your product can have its own page and from there you scientifically evaluate user interaction and increase you marketing plans. Marketing has always been scientific is the way of evaluating what works and what doesn’t work. The internet can do this scientific work for you and you can adjust quicker than in traditional marketing. Social media it allow for massive social interaction between different cultures, groups, and classes of people.
Three reasons why people interact in social media and online communities
- A user is motivated to contribute to the community in the expectation that he will receive useful help and information in return (Socialmediatoday.com, 2012).
- Individuals want recognition for their contributions. The desire for prestige is one of the key motivations for individuals’ contributions in an online community (Socialmediatoday.com, 2012).
- Individuals may contribute because the act results in a sense that they have had some effect on the community (Socialmediatoday.com, 2012).
Social Media Articles of Interest
- Social Media Marketing Defined
- Social Media Marketing in 3 Minutes
- Social Media Statistics
- Small Business Marketing Ideas
- Amazon Books on Social Media Marketing
- You-Tube videos on Social Media Marketing
- 10 Inspiring Infographics
- Google Search
References
Evans, D. (2008). Social media marketing an hour a day. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc.
Socialmediatoday.com (2012). In What Motivates People to Participate in Social Media? Retrieved Nov 16, 2012, from http://socialmediatoday.com/index.php?q=SMC/190499
Social Media 2012 – Statistics, Facts, and Figures
Mitche77 - Emarketing 345 
I completely agree with your comment “Social media brings life to the internet. It gives opinions, insight, emotions, video, pictures, and most of all human interaction. I cannot understand why some companies have not adapted to this new media.”. It truly does bring the internet to life with interaction. Some companies have noticed this, but others are falling behind. Sometimes people get stuck in their ways and are afraid of change, but I think learning about social media can help marketers realize what they need to do to reach people on social media. The audience is there, but companies to to take advantage of it.