SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

Evaluate Social Networking Sites (Only Facebook and Twitter) Effectiveness and Communicate With Consumer

Evaluate Social Networking Sites (Only Facebook and Twitter) Effectiveness and Communicate With Consumer

1) Information Gathered To Research Topic

The study will be focusing on the social media site's effectiveness and communication with consumer. The main websites which have been focused in this study are Facebook and Twitter. In recent years, social networking sites (SNS) have become the leading form of social media and one of the most important for communicators due to its connectivity component. SNS have generated millions of new users within months. In February 2010, Facebook reported that it had reached 400 million active users, double the number reported in April 2009. Many of the users have incorporated these sites into their daily routine (Brogan, 2010, p. 84). Some of the most popular SNS today include Facebook, and Twitter . SNS cater to an array of audiences based on specific interest or shared characteristics such as language, racial, sexual or religious identities. While the technological features tend to remain fairly consistent from site to site, it is the member engagement and what the users bring to the various sites that build a unique culture within each of these communities. Thus, this paper is a reflection of the social media effectiveness. These days' companies are paying more attention on the marketing through social media networks. According to a research study, the most effective social media websites are Facebook and Twitter.

2) Literature Review

Social media marketing is gaining its importance with the passage of time. There are different ways through which the companies communicate with their customers and advertise their brands. This is an era of information technology, and internet advertising has reached to a boom. The fastest and most effective medium of advertising through internet is social media advertising. These days, people are giving more importance to the social media advertising (Darlington, 2010, p. 38). The most effective social media networks are Facebook and Twitter. According to researches, Facebook has the highest number of users among all the social media networks, and twitter comes in the second place.

Facebook

Facebook as a social networking application is relatively straightforward to join, and to set up an individual user account or group. Also searching for groups is as easy as using a regular search engine. Whilst recruitment, retention and attrition statistics are not available, membership of Facebook has continued to grow since its inception in 2004 (Statistics- Facebook September 2008) proving it to be an easy to use application and providing value to users. In their book 'Net Gain', Armstrong & Hagel, 1997, believe that communities that can meet the multiple needs of users will provide the most value, and thus be the most successful (Clark, 2010, p. 507). As a platform, Facebook has multiple products and applications that address different needs of users and might also explain part of growth and popularity of the network of users (Product Overview a-Facebook).

Social media and networking websites are playing an essential role ...