Assignment 4: Internet Technology, Marketing, and Security

Your Name

Assignment 4: Internet Technology, Marketing, and Security

BUS 508

Professor

March 3, 2013

Evaluate the reasons Social Media Marketing has become exceedingly popular among businesses of all sizes.

When the social media craze first began, it was viewed primarily as a way for people (family, friends and colleagues) to have fun online by communicating with one another about a diverse variety of topics, similar to a type of “online recreation” on a personal level (WigiSocial, 2012). Marketing for business can get very expensive. So, it didn’t take long for companies to realize the opportunities available for using social media to promote their products and build their fan base. The participation in social media once it caught on has been tremendous, and it only seems to grow with each passing day as its quickly gaining popularity. So it would seem only natural that companies would want to harness some of that power to promote their products and/or services (WigiSocial, 2012).

Facebook and Twitter are social media platforms most commonly used to alert customers about marketing sales and specials. Businesses have the option to use Facebook to create a fan page for company products and services. Twitter can be used by businesses for breaking news by using of 140-character posts that users follow. Blogs can be influential in spreading news and information as they are online journals written by users. YouTube is a repository for podcasts and video clips, with a viewership of millions around the globe (Sandiland). Social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us and Digg enable users to share links to information with friends and followers (Sandiland). The majority of the sites are simply a method of sharing information with others but some sites will offer display advertising options.

More than one billion tweets are sent every 2-3 days across Twitter, which has become a social network of significant importance (to varying degrees) in every...