Social Media as a Marketing Tool

Marketing is an essential tool for all businesses, regardless of size, because it strongly contributes to the overall success of an organization. Marketing is defined as “the performance of activities that seek to accomplish an organization’s objectives by anticipating customer or client needs and directing a flow of need-satisfying goods and services from producer to customer or client” (Perreault, Cannon, McCarthy, 2014, p. 7). There are many different channels of distribution and tools a business can use to make marketing more effective and efficient. Although, marketing on the internet is not a new concept, using social media as a marketing tool is fairly new to businesses and has become increasingly popular over the years.

Social media marketing is when a business utilizes web-based applications, such as social media websites and social networking websites, to market and promote the company’s products and/or services (Social Media Marketing). Marketing on social media has many benefits and can be easily implemented into the company’s overall marketing strategy. It is very important for the company to understand the options available and how to use social media as an effective marketing tool. Also, a business needs to understand how to measure and evaluate the success of using social media marketing so they can make improvements and changes to get the most out of their marketing strategy.

The Importance of Marketing on Social Media

The internet and social media play an important role in almost everyone’s day-to-day life. According to statistics, there are about 3 billion active internet users and of that 3 billion, nearly 2.1 billion of those people have a social media account (Bullas). These numbers create a very large audience for marketing professionals to target their products and services to. Additionally, more and more users are added each year, which makes it increasingly important for businesses to become familiar with social media marketing and...