Life Science Journal 2012;9(4) http://www.lifesciencesite.

com

Social Media Marketing

Dr. M. Saravanakumar 1, Dr.T.SuganthaLakshmi 2

1.
Associate Professor, School of Management Studies, Anna University,Regional Center Coimbatore, Jothipuram
Post, Coimbatore – 641 047, Tamilnadu, India. Email: [email protected]
2.
Assistant Professor, School of Management Studies, Anna University,Regional Center Coimbatore, Jothipuram
Post, Coimbatore – 641 047, Tamilnadu, India. Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT: During different time era's different methods of communications has developed and changed the day
by day life. Social media has become the method of statement in the 21't century, enabling us to express our belief,
ideas and manner in a absolute new way. This way of message have also have a huge impact on corporation, where
they have realize that without a correct plan and social media strategy they have no chance to stand out in the rapidly
changing digital freedom. To guarantee a successful attendance on social media the companies need to take different
marketing theories into consideration so that they can boost their brand in different aspect. If this can be collective
with original ways of consumer interaction the companies have a good chance to take the lead in social media
marketing'. The meteoric growth of community websites, such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedln, have usher the
world into a new era of social media. The global reach is nothing short of marvelous, so much so that if Facebook
were a country, it would be third largest, next to China and India. Some even say that this is the biggest shift since
the industrial revolution, which means that the world has a brand new playing meadow At its center, social media is
any kind of online media that stimulates participation, openness' conversation, Connecters and sense of community.
The social media phenomenon has a profound impact. Social media has transformed research methods. This allows
brands to communicate better with their consumers, and intensify their association with them. The advertising world
has not been spared from social media influence. Companies are now more careful with advertising; chiefly in
anticipate consumer response and avoiding unanticipated blunders to prevent a viral consumer backlash in
networking sites. Social media plays a hybrid role in the promotion mix. It allows companies to talk to their
clientele and, at the same time, it allows regulars to talk to one another. Shaping customers' discussions to ensure
they are aligned to the organization's goals is the firm's best importance. Companies have started provided that their
consumers with networking platforms, and have occupied them during blogs and other social media tools. Social
media is seen by Marketers today as a great opportunity to boost market share figures. Marketers are only too happy
to view the social web as a new set of channels through which to market their goods or services. Social media
marketing is a hot topic for companies. It allows companies to establish a communication channel with its
customers, market their products, build brand equity, and boost clientele faithfulness.However, as it is a two-way
channel, it requires effort and care to manage this communication. Dissatisfied customers can protest out loud,
attainment many other customers easily and damaging the brand's image. In order to avoid the risk of damaging the
brand's image rather than improving it, the company should align their social media marketing with the global
marketing strategy of the company. In order to do this, the business should choose the profile of people that matches
its target segment and communicate with them accordingly.
[M. Saravanakumar, T.SuganthaLakshmi. Social Media Marketing. Life Sci J 2012;9(4):4444-4451]. (ISSN: 1097-
8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com. 670

Keywords: Social; Media; Marketing

1.0 INTRODUCTION of the previous industrial media paradigm.

Marketing is a well-developed methodological Traditional media such as television, news papers,
science and is constantly changing its rules according radio and magazines are in one direction static show
to the needs and developments taking place in and technologies. New web technology have made it
around it. To establish itself in the new eta, it has simple for anyone to create and most highly, issue
begun adapting the new methods of virtues to come their own content. A blog position, tweet or youtube
to terms with the new paradigms of business. The video can be twisted and viewed by millions almost
role of marketing in the development of business is for free. Advertisers don't have to reimburse
intact but the way it was executed is radically publishers or distributors huge sums of money to
changing due to contributions made by satellite embed their messages and they can make their own
communication and extensively developed scientific interesting content that viewers will flock to. Social
devices. Social Media is best defined in the context media comes in many forms and the eight most

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popular are: Blogs, Microblogs, Social Networks, their primary digital tool to reach customers, and that
Media-Sharing Sites, Social Bookmarking and proportion is probable to increase to 47 percent
selection Sites, analysis Sites, forum and effective within the next four years. fuel this growth is a
Worlds. growing list of success stories from majority
2.0 TECHNOLOGY AND ITS IMPACT ON companies:
BUSINESS Creating buzz: Eighteen months before Ford
Over the past 40 years, there has been a radical re-entered the US subcompact-car market with its
shift in how business is conducted and how people Fiesta model, it began a broad promotion movement
cooperate. The preface of private computers, the called the Fiesta Movement. A major part involved
Internet, and e-commerce have had a great impact on giving 100 social-media influencers a European
how businesses function and promote. The preface of model of the car, having them whole "missions,,, and
social media technology is accelerating and it can ask them to paper their practice on a selection of
expect it to have a similar impact on businesses now social channels. Videos related to the Fiesta
and into the prospect. As new technologies become campaign generated 6.5 million views on YouTube,
existing, business that learn to use innovative and Ford received 50,000 requests for information
technologies increase great reimbursement. Some of about the vehicle, mostly from non-Ford drivers.
the best-known examples include technology-driven When it finally became available to the public, in late
companies such as Microsoft, eBay, Amazon and 2010, some 10,000 cars sold in the first six days.
Google. Finally' the explosive growth of the smart Learning from customers: PepsiCo has used
phone market and mobile computing is affecting the social networks to collect customer insight via its
strategy, as social media connectivity is becoming DEW McCray promotions, which have led to the
easier and is helping social media glow even faster. making of new variety of its Mountain Dew brand.
3.0 BIG BRANDS AND SOCIAL MEDIA Since 2008, the company has sold more than 36
Social media is being widely used by almost all million cases of them.
and even the companies, in spite of their size have Targeting customers: Levi Strauss has used
started using social media to advertise and promote social media to offer location-specific deals. In one
themselves. Big brands make use of the social media instance, direct interactions with just 400 consumers
to convey their strong existence and friendly led 1,600 people to turn up at the company's stores-
customer relationship. Big brands like IBM, Dell and an example of social media's word-of-mouth effect.
Burger King have made use of the social media to a The number of companies with Facebook
greater extent. IBM owns more than 100 different pages, Twitter feeds, or online communities continue
blogs, a dozen islands in the virtual world, several to grow. Marketing primary objective is to reach
official Twitter accounts, and a accepted forum called consumers at the moments, or touch points, that
DeveloperWorks. It publishes a machine series on influence their purchasing behavior. Social media is a
youTube, and several employees upload exclusive component of the consumer decision
presentations to the media-sharing-site SlideShare. journey: it's the only form of marketing that can
Dell has tapped the power of social media with finger consumers at each and every stage, from when
its hugely popular IdeaStorm website, where users they're pondering brands and products right through
add thoughts for new creation lines and enhancement, the period after a purchase, as their experience
choose them up or down, and comment on influences the brands they prefer and their potential
submission. Because of the site, Dell has ongoing to advocacy influences others.
ship computers with Linux install, and has added 5.0 THE PILLARS OF SOCIAL MEDIA
community carry. Starbucks has also started to use MARKETING (Table 1)
this representation to some success with its
MyStarbucks Idea Site. Burger King has made Table 1. Commonly Used Social Media Marketing Tools
headline time and time again with its innovative and
viral social marketing campaigns. The burger chain
offered Facebook users a free Whopper coupon if
Facebook 92% Twitter 84% LinkedIn 71%
they would "unfriend" 10 of their social network Blogs 68% Youtube 56% Forums 24%
connections. Foursquare 17% MySpace 6% Social BookMarking 26%
4.0 THE SOCIAL CONSUMER DECISION 5.1 Blogging
JOURNEY A blog is a type of content management system
Companies have quickly learned that social that makes it easy for anyone to publish short articles
media works: 39 percent of companies surveyed by called posts. Blog software provides a variety of
McKinsey Quarterly use social-media services as social features, including comments, blog rolls,

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trackbacks and subscriptions that make it perfect for  Stay on top of what the competitor is doing;
marketing purposes. Blogs make great hubs for other  Keep in touch with the own clients
social media marketing efforts, as they can be (subscribe to their Tweets and see what they are
integrated with nearly every tool and platform. Every doing);
company with a website should have a blog that  Offer private discounts and sales
speaks to its current and potential customers as real announcements;
people. Blogs are not the right place for corporate-  Provide internal updates to team members
speak press releases; blogs should be conversational and employees;
in tone.  Get leads on business opportunities, trends,
Mashable is one of the five most popular blogs and a jump on late-breaking news.
on the web, according to Technocratic, and is the 6.0 SOCIAL NETWORKS
leader in the social media niche. Blogs influence As the World Wide Web grew in popularity,
roughly one in five readers at important purchase- social networking moved to web-based applications.
decision stages, according to Buzz Logic and Jupiter The first wave was built for specific functions or
Research’s "Harnessing the Power of Blogs" report. audiences. In 1995, Classmates.com and Match.com
Specifically, blogs help consumers discover products were created; both remained fairly popular sites in
and services, refine choices, get support and answers, their niche. In 1999, more targeted networks were
and decide on a specific product or service. From a launched. The modern era of social networks began
direct marketing perspective, these findings make in2002, when Jonathan Abrams launched Friendster.
sense because blogs aggregate customers who have In 2003, Intermix Media developed the social
similar demographic, psychographic, and behavioral network, MySpace. It duplicated the core
traits. According to the research, readers trust blog functionality of Friendster. Initially powered by
content more than social media sites for shopping. Intermix Media's large mailing lists, MySpace
This makes sense, since shoppers look for detailed quickly became a leader among social networking
information to help them make a decision rather than sites. In October 2003, Mark Zuckerberg went on to
engage with random posters who may have opinions create the Facebook, a social network that began as
about products. an exclusive site for Harvard Students. Finally, in
While no longer the latest, preferred form of 2006, anyone with an e-mail id can sign up.
online communications, blogs can be highly effective Sometime between 2008 and 2009, Facebook
and cost-efficient in driving sales. But they aren't a overtook MySpace.
quick marketing fix. They're a form of online media Facebook would be a natural fit for internet
that requires a long-term investment to help and marketing. How would a marketer take advantage?
engage the customers and create more interest in the Some ways may include:
product offering. By their nature, blogs also aid  Establishing and enhancing the brand image
search optimization and reduce the burden of post-
 Establishing and enhancing the company’s
purchase support and customer service. authority in the market , a thought leader
5.2 Twitter and Micro Blogging
 Using the network for market research
Micro blogging is a form of blogging that limits
(opinions and viewpoints, good for surveys)
the size of each post; for instance, Twitter updates
can contain only 140 characters. Twitter started to  Creating a Facebook group of people of
take off in terms of popularity in the first half of 2009 similar interest. Great for networking.
as a result of high-profile celebrity members and a  Targeted Advertising
mention on Oprah, and now it has become more main According to the wall Street Journal, Facebook is
stream than other social media tools. Most companies working on a system to allow targeted advertising to
should be on Twitter; it's easy, requires very little specific networks of people with similar interest.
investment of time, and can quickly prove Social-networking Web site Facebook Inc. is quietly
worthwhile in increased buzz, sales and consumer working on a new advertising system that would let
insight. Twitter can also be used to announce offers marketers target users with ads based on the massive
or events, promote new blog posts, or keep the amounts of information people reveal on the site
readers in the know with links to important news about themselves. Eventually, it hopes to refine the
stories. Twitter can be one way of staying on top system to allow it to predict what products and
what the competitor is doing. The company can also services users might be interested in even before they
show support for their Twitter-loving customers by have specifically mentioned an area.
subscribing to their tweets. Briefly, Twitter for EBay’s Group Gifts service, employs Facebook
businesses is a fast, easy (and free) way to: platform technology. To use Group Gifts, users log in
with their Facebook credentials, which loads up the

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list of their Facebook friends? The user can then items at ridiculously low prices for fans only. Most
choose the friend for whom she wants to get a gift discounts were in the range of 90% and were limited
and then proceed to look for an appropriate item. The to the first 100 people to check out with the item at
site can offer generic gifts, but a savvy user can ask lowes.com. Not only did this engage existing
the application to look at the gift recipient's list of customers, but it drove new customers to "like"
Likes on Facebook and recommend a set of items that Lowes' Facebook page, allowing Lowes to post
match the recipient's interests. Once the gift is future deals-on their newsfeeds.
chosen, the user can decide how much to contribute 7.2 Crowd sourcing
herself and how much to leave for others to chip in. Wal-Mart and Gap have used crowdsourcing
Then, she can automatically post a status update on tactics on Facebook, inviting large groups to
Facebook that alerts others that they can contribute to participate in shaping an offer or strategy. The Wal-
that gift. When these friends see the update, they can Mart Crowd Savers program, for example, offers a
click on it to go to the Group Gifts site and add their potential deal to Facebook fans that is only activated
contributions. Once the sum of all contributions if enough fans "like" the promotion - in effect,
equals the purchase price of the gift, the transaction joining together to reach a goal - much like
is executed and the recipient receives the gift, a list of Groupon's model. Similarly, last year Gap asked its
all the friends who contributed to it, and brief notes Facebook fans to comment on its new logo design.
from them. After a barrage of negative feedback from fans, Gap
It is truly social. It overcomes some real off-line invited them to submit their own designs.
difficulties related to group gift giving - like having Responding to customers' outcry, the retailer
to solicit people directly and risking embarrassment ultimately restored its original logo.
when you ask someone to contribute who does not 7.3 Check-ins
want to do so. The online application simply puts it Mobile-device check-ins is a popular way to
out there for people to contribute if they wish. Also, electronically announce the arrival at a location. This
it seeks to strengthen relationships between friends. It has enormous potential value for retailers who, if
also has real strategic benefits for eBay. The they identify customers at all, typically don't do it
company can sell a greater volume of more expensive until checkout, at which point it's too late to influence
items. And since individuals are, in essence, a purchase. Facebook Deals enables retailers to
advertising the service to their friends, it lowers provide electronic coupons and loyalty points when
eBay's cost of acquiring customers. In other words, customers check in at arrival, increasing store traffic
this kind of social strategy produces a win-win for and sales, and giving retailers a clearer picture of
Facebook users and a company. their customers' behavior. Last year REI drove traffic
7.0 USING FACEBOOK TO CAPTURE to its stores by offering $1 donations to charity for
CUSTOMERS every check-in, with a ceiling of $100,000. American
A central tenet of retailing is to put stores near Eagle has offered 20% discounts to customers who
customers. Now that 600 million potential customers check into its stores.
are on Facebook, retailers are flocking to the site and 7.4 Games
aggressively experimenting with new communication Games like Farmville and Mafia Wars hosted on
strategies. Here are five ways they're connecting with Facebook are immensely successful, creating an ideal
customers on Facebook. opportunity for retailers to do something they know
7.1 Promotions well: marry entertainment and merchandising. Last
For retailers, the key is to treat "fans" differently summer 7-Eleven partnered with game-maker Zynga
than other customers by providing special access to to extend social games into the physical world. Items
offers and information. Using Facebook as a one-way such as slurpees and Big Gilps were branded with
communications channel is a baby step, but Farmville, Mafia Wars and YoVille designs that had
broadcasting deals already found in other channels redemption codes for in-game rewards. Meanwhile,
isn't a particularly effective engagement model. A teen-fashion retailer Wet Seal has been developing its
smarter approach is to reward fans by, for instance, own Facebook game, Chic Boutique. The retailer is
providing Facebook-only discounts and sneak peeks hoping customers will compete with each other
at upcoming products. online to design outfits compiled from items in its
Participatory promotions are particularly catalog, increasing awareness of Wet Seal's offerings
effective as they add excitement to online purchasing and driving sales.
and an incentive for customers to invite other friends. 7.5 Social Shopping
For example, Lowes ran a Black Friday campaign on The most obvious use of Facebook is also the
Facebook in which it offered a limited number of most elusive - to create more than just an e-

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commerce store within a Facebook frame. Over the Internet. Social Bookmarking is a technique that is
past two years several retailers have made it possible explained as organizing and maintaining resourceful
for customers to browse a subset of products on the bookmarks online. The method began in April 1996
company's Facebook page, but they usually rely on when the website itList was launched giving users the
their e-commerce site to complete the transaction. capability of having public or private bookmarks.
This is a step in the right direction, but to take real Over the next few years online bookmark services
advantage of Facebook, retailers must make it easier began to go head to head with each other and the
for people on the site to communicate with each other industry became very competitive with venture-
about products, promotions' and reviews, and backed institutions such as Hotlinks, ClickMarks,
seamlessly make purchases. Clip2, Blink and Backflip amongst others entering
To that end JCPenney recently opened a the marketplace.
storefront on Facebook containing its entire catalog In 2003, Delicious was formed and pioneered a
of products. The UK retailer ASOS quickly followed term called 'tagging' which allowed users to search
suit. Facebook is testing a Buy-with-Friends program' for bookmarked items by a keyword, Delicious also
currently limited to virtual goods, that publishes coined the phrase 'Social Bookmarking'. Social
users' purchases on friends' newsfeeds and, by bookmarking is a very useful way to access a
offering discounts, encourages those friends to make compiled list of bookmarks from a variety of
the same purchase. All companies, not just retailers, computers, manage a large amount of bookmarks and
should be using social media like Facebook to listen share the bookmarks with contacts. Many
to what customer are saying about their products and bookmarking sites have implemented a voting system
brand; attract them by using promotions, contests, where users are encouraged to indicate bookmarks
and games; and involve them to keep them loyal and that they found to be interesting or of use. As a
take advantage of the power of influential’s. These bookmark receives more votes its visibility increases
are the early days, and while it's uncertain what will on the website which in turn generates more and
work best, it's likely that retailers that don't more votes.
experiment with social commerce will find their 10.0 REVIEW SITES
customers defecting to those that do. A review site is a website on which reviews can
8.0 MEDIA SHARING SITES be posted about people, businesses, products, or
Media sharing sites allow you to upload your services. These sites may use web 2.0 techniques to
photos, videos and audio to a website that can be gather reviews from site users or may employ
accessed from anywhere in the world. Most services professional writers to author reviews on the topic of
have additional social features such as profiles, concern for the site. Early review sites included
commenting, etc. The most popular by far are Epinions.com and Amazon.com. Review sites are
youTube (videos) and Flickr (pictures). Whether it's generally supported by advertising. Some business
Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr or one of the many photo review sites may also allow businesses to pay for
sharing sites popping up online, image-driven social enhanced listings, which do not affect the reviews
media networks and sites are a great resource for and ratings. Product review sites may be supported
B2B companies. Online marketing doesn't just by providing affiliate links to the websites that sell
consist of Facebook, PPC efforts, and banners. the reviewed items.
Online marketing is about providing current and With the growing popularity of affiliate
potential customers with interesting, informative programs on the Internet, a new sort of review site
content. This includes images. Because many photo has emerged - the affiliate product review site. This
sharing sites are free, a business's biggest investment type of site is usually professionally designed and
is time. B2B companies can truly benefit from having written to maximize conversions, and is used by e-
corporate accounts on a number of these photo commerce marketers. It's often based on a blog
sharing sites. platform like Wordpress, has a privacy and contact
9.0 SOCIAL BOOKMARKING AND VOTING page to help with SEO, and has commenting and
SITES interactivity turned off. It will also have an e-mail
Social bookmarking sites are a popular way to gathering device in the form of an opt-in, or drop-
store, classify, share and search links through the down list to help the aspiring e-commerce business
practice of folksonomy (an Internet-based person build an e-mail list to market to. These sites
information retrieval methodology consisting of generally review e-books. Because of the specialized
collaboratively generated, open-ended labels that marketing thrust of this type of website, the reviews
categorize content such as Web pages, online are not objective.
photographs, and Web links) techniques on the

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Studies by independent research groups like who in turn can manipulate elements of the modeled
Forrester Research, comScore, The Kelsey Group, world and thus experience a degree of telepresence.
and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association show Such modeled worlds and their rules may draw from
that rating and review sites influence consumer the reality or fantasy worlds. Example rules are
shopping behavior. In an academic study published in gravity, topography, locomotion, real-time actions,
2008, empirical results demonstrated that the number and communications. Communication between users
of online user reviews is a good indicator of the can range from text, graphical icons, visual gesture,
intensity of underlying word-of-mouth effect and sound and rarely, forms using touch, voice command
increase awareness. In 2007 even large companies and balance senses.
such as Best Buy and Walmart began to mention In the virtual world, people can meet,
online reviews in television advertisements and on collaborate, plan, visualize, train and learn together.
the back of receipts. They can use the same tools as in real life meetings
11.0 FORUMS such as whiteboards and PowerPoint as well as
An Internet forum, or message board, is an accessing media such as You Tube and Websites.
online discussion site where people can hold Furthermore they can visualize information three
conversations in the form of posted messages. They dimensional. For example, instead of seeing a list of
differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least potential clients, they could walk onto a live Google
temporarily archived. Also, depending on the access map and touch a marker to bring up media relevant to
level of a user or the forum set-up, a posted message the organization such as their website , news
might need to be approved by a moderator before it coverage , press release etc – all in one space – and
become visible. Forums have a specific set of jargon share that experience with other team members ( no
associated with them; e.g. a single conversation is matter where they are in the world).
called a “thread”. A discussion forum is hierarchical 13.0 SOCIAL MEDIA STATISTICS
or tree-like in structure: a forum can contain a Facebook:
number of sub forums, each of which may have 1. There are now more than 800 million active
several topics. Within a forum’s topic, each new Facebook users, with more than 200 million added in
discussion started is called a thread, and can be 2011 .
replied to by as many people as so wish. Depending 2. B2C Facebook results are 30% above average on
on the forum’s settings, users can be anonymous or Sundays. (Convince & Converts)
have to register with the forum and then subsequently 3. Nearly every charity and University in America is
log in order to post messages. On most forums, users on Facebook. Less than 60% of the fortune 500 are.
do not have to log in to read existing messages. (Grow)
Forum marketing is great way to make your 4. The average Facebook user has 130 friends and is
online business stand out from the crowd, forum connected to 80 pages, events and groups. (Social
users are generally net savvy and open to making Media Examiner)
online purchases. Many forum users are also 5. 95% of Facebook wall posts are not answered by
respected experts and bloggers in the specific topics brands (Facebook).
covered by the forum. Forum marketing is a high 6. Auto-posting to Face-book decreases likes and
ROL strategy because making a good impression in comments by 70%.(inside Facebook)
front of this savvy and influential audience can help 7. When it comes to liking brands on facebook, the
your marketing message spread far and wide. reasons are varied, but for the most part, respondents
12.0 VIRTUAL WORLD said they “Like” a brand on Facebook because they
A virtual world is an online community that are a customer(58%) or because they went to receive
takes the form of a computer-based simulated discounts and promotions(57%).(Mashable)
environment through which users can interact with 8. 77% of consumers said they interact with brands
one another and use and create objects. The term has on facebook primarily through reading posts and
become largely synonymous with interactive 3D updates from the brands…(Mashabke)
virtual environments, where the users take the form 9. 17% of respondents said they interact with brands
of avatars visible to others. These avatars usually by sharing experiences and news stories with others
appear as textual, two-dimensional, or three- about the brand and only 13% of respondents said
dimension representation a, although other forms are they post updates about brands that they like
possible (auditory and touch sensations for example). (Mashabke)
In general, virtual worlds allow for multiple users. 10. 56% of consumers said they are more likely to
The computer accesses a computer-simulated recommend a brand to a friend after becoming a fan
world and presents perceptual stimuli to the user, on facebook (Mashable)

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11. There are more than3.5 billion pieces of said Facebook is one of their top three social media
content(web links, news stories, blog posts, etc.) platform priorities. Twitter was second with 77% and
shared each week on Facebook. (Hubspot) Youtube trailed with 42%. (Scratch Engine Watch).
Figures on Social Media 26. The Mobile marketing Association of Asia atated
12. Roughly two-third of social media users say that that ouyt of the 6 billionpeople on the planet, 4.8
staying in touch with current friends and family billion have a mobile phone while only 4.2 billion
members is a major reason they use these sites while own a toothbrush. (60 Second Marketer)
half say that connecting with old friends they have 27. 61% in 2010 and 65% in 2011, Fully 65% of
lost touch with is a major reason behind their use o adult internet users now say they use a social-
these technology.( PEW research) networking site like MySpace, Facebook or Linkedin,
13. One in three respondents (33%) said that they up from 61% one year ago. This marks the first time
could prioritize social media freedom, device in Pew Internet surveys that 50% of all adults use
flexibility and work mobility over salary in accepting social networking sites. (Wired PR Works)
a job offeer ( GIGAOM ) 28. IT professionals see serious risks assocaited with
14. One in three textors would rather text than talk enterprise social network use – and only 29% say
(NY TIMES: BITS) they have adequate protection. (InformationWeek :
15. 73% of people think employees over share on The BrainYard)
social media (marketing piligrim) 29. Social media is responsible for one-third the web
16. 43% of all online consumers are social media traffic in Malaysia. (ReadWriteWeb)
fans or followers (HUBSPOT) 30. 44% of companies track employees’ social-media
17. 64% of AMERICAN stream mobile vedio at use in and out of the office (TheNextWeb)
work (TUBE FILTER) 31. 84% Among college students and young
18. According to Threatmatrix survey of 722 active professionals, 24% experience three to five
internet using consumers, 37% intend to make a interruptions in a given hour, while 84% get
purchase using their smartphone, nearly three times interrupted at least once while trying to complete a
as many as those who plan to use their tablet. (Get project. (GigaOm)
Elastic). 32. The mean half life of a link on Twitter is 2.8
General Social Media hours, on Facebook it’s 3.2 hours and via “direct”
19. Tablet owners tend to consume a greater variety sources( like email or IM clients) it’s 3.4 hours. So
and volume of news on their devices, and Tablets’ you can expect, on average, an extra 24 minutes of
visual , interactive features encourage in-depth attention if you post on Facebook than if you post on
exploration, according to a joiny study from Starcom Twitter. (bitly blog)
Mediavest and the online division of the BBC. 33. 20% of searches on Google each day have never
(Mashable) been searched for before. (HubSpot).
20. More Smartphones and Tablet owners are 34. SEO : Still dominates for marketers, with both
researching products than purchasing them – 80.8% B2B (57%) and B2C (41%) businesses stating it
compared to 41.4%, according to BIGResearh – but makes the biggest impact on their lead generation
attitudes vary quite a bit among different age goals. (AllTwitter).
groups.(eMarketer) 35. A^A : Overall. 57% of comments about U.S.
21. 40% of bloggers themselves are professionals.( airlines on social media in the past year where
MediaBistro/ State of the Blogosphere 2011) negative. But American Airlines- The world’s 4th
22. A 2011 study by the National Restaurent largest airlines stood out with only 12% of social
Association conforms that consumers who use social media opinions about the airlines being positive. (The
media including apps, Twitter, Facebook, RealTime Report)
FourSquare, UrbanSpoon and more, not only dine out 36. 56% of college students said that if they
more, but are more likely to become return encountered a company that banned access to social
customers. (ReadWriteWeb) media they would either not accept a job offer or
23. Linked In : Linkedin has 64 million users in would join and find a way to circumvent corporate
North America alone.(All Twitter) policy. (GigaOm)
24. John Hopkins, facebook’s birth place Harvard, 37. Only 15% have the average local business’s fans
and Notre Dame are the top schools for social are in the city where the business is located. (WSJ)
media.( Boston.com) 38. According to a new studt published by Neilsen
25. Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are now those two categories eat up 23% of internet usage
considered cornerstones of most social-media overall. This is double online gaming, which comes
strategies in larger companies. 94% of respodents in at number two and after that, it takes 75 different

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categories to account for the remaining 35% of time Facebook and other social networking sites, it is
spent (Marketing Pilgrim) bound to bring in more customers for the business
39. There are 245 million internet users in the U.S, and much more promotions and marketing thus
according to internet world statistics. Nielsen making social media, the better platform for
estimates that social sites and blocks reach 80% of all marketing.
active U.S internet users (PR Week)
40. 30% of B2B marketers are spending millions of Corresponding Author:
dollars annually on social marketing programs, Dr.T.SuganthaLakshmi
though nearly 30% are not traking impact of social Assistant Professor, School of Management
media programs on lead generation and sales. Studies,Anna University,
41. NETFLIX: Netflix’s price hike caused 8,05,000 Regional Center Coimbatore,
paid subscriber to jum ship in the most recent quarter. Jothipuram Post, Coimbatore – 641 047,
Twitter Tamilnadu, India. Email: [email protected]
42. E-Marketer estimates there will be nearly 21
million twitter users in the U.S by the end of this Reference :
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50% 5. Brian Halligan & Dharmesh shah., “Inbound
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14.0 CONCLUSION 8. Lon Safko & David K. Brake ., “The Social Media
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institutions. It isn't about stockholders making Success”, Wiley, 1 edition, 2009
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Social media is about ordinary people taking control strategy". Bizjournals.com.
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of Advertising 30, Pg 13–46. (2011).
primarily internet-based but has similarities with non- 11. Erik Cambria, Marco Grassi, Amir Hussain and
internet-based, marketing methods like word-of- Catherine Havasi., "Sentic Computing for Social
mouth marketing. SMM is the way of promoting a Media Marketing". In press: Multimedia Tools and
website, brand or business by interacting with or Applications Journal. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
attracting the interest of current or prospective Heidelberg , (2011).
customers through the channels of social media.
Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are the most popular 11/20/2012
social media that are widely used by the companies
and the celebrities in promoting themselves and their
brands. With the number of users rising each day in

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