Advertising in Social Media

Over the past several years our economy has been struggling, to say the least. The economies struggles reflect on everyone. Most people had to change and somewhat scale down their lifestyles in order to cope with the struggling economy. The people began to realize that things were going to be tough for a while and began to prioritize their income. This effected how companies chose to advertise their products. Social media was seen as the most effective and appealing outlet to advertise to the new money conscious consumer base. The economic downturn over the last few years has hurt print advertising. Consumers prefer to get free product information on social media sites, opposed to going out to the store to purchase a newspaper or magazine. All though it is more expensive to advertise on social media sites than it is to advertise using other media outlets, companies get a much greater return on their investment from social media. The vastly growing consumer base and the high return on investment make social media outlets very effective advertising platforms, despite the struggling economy.
Twitter and Facebook are among the top social media outlets that companies use for advertising their brand. Twitter advertises through “tweets” these are short messages describing what the company is trying to offer. Tweets are effective because consumers are more likely to read them because of their short length. These tweets can also be linked to the companies website or other social media accounts, allowing for greater consumer interaction. Twitter generates excellent return on investment because consumers have to seek out a company in order to follow their tweets. After a consumer is following a company, the company’s tweets show up on the consumer’s home page. This allows a product to be promoted in real time, keeping it fresh in the consumers mind. Facebook offers a more detailed advertising platform compared to Twitter. Companies can create a Facebook page that