By Sandeep Dasika:
The internet is positively responsible for turning the entire world into a global village. Now, the whole world is at your fingertips, just like that. Thanks to the Internet Bubble! With the advent of social media, social interaction with the people around us has been taken to an entirely new level, like never before. It is now much easier to get in touch with your long lost friends. Thanks to Facebook!
According to Alexa (one of the leading web information company), Facebook is the second most visited website on the web, next only to Google. With over 30,000 servers needed to host the website, Facebook houses more than 450 million users worldwide. With more and more people becoming a part of the ‘Internet Revolution’, spreading information and creating awareness has become easier like never before and there’s little skepticism associated with the fact that Facebook is one of the most effective platforms to create and spread awareness on the web. Now, viral marketing is not a just a mere thought, but an effective form of promotion.
As an instance, consider the case of how social media accelerated the uprising in Egypt. Facebook (as well as Twitter) was used to organize protests, and make people aware of the demonstrations that were scheduled to take place on January 25th, so much so, that the Egyptian government had to shut down the internet for a few days to gain control over the situation.
Marketers use Facebook to create brand awareness, through what is known as Viral Marketing. By creating an attractive landing page for the users to see when they arrive at the brand’s ‘fan page’, the marketers elevate the possibility of the user ‘liking’ the page. Consequently, the user’s home feed is populated with content from the page. The effect is even more dramatic when a friend of the user decides to visit the page and thus begins another story. With more than 200 million users who log on to Facebook in a given day and an average of over 71 million pieces of content, including links, images, videos, and notes etc. being shared among them, one can see how Facebook is proving to be a cutting edge for creating brand awareness and how it has become the social platform de rigueur for anyone looking to promote just about anything.
Also, Facebook ads give marketers the power to target their niche market. With discretion over the gender, demography, interests and age etc. the marketers can suitably target the ads towards potential buyers of the services or products at a reasonable expense.
Due to the ever increasing advancement of technology and the rising number of tech startups aiming to provide solutions to everyday problems, the number of netizens has increased at a rapid rate. Now, people find themselves at ease booking air and road tickets (credits to Redbus.in) online just by a mere couple of clicks. As such, there was to be some platform through which marketers could exploit this significant lifestyle change and the answer to that was Facebook!