Social Media Tools and Platforms
| This new trend in marketing and advertising is a result of the now dominant use of the Internet infrastructure and increasing adoption of social media tools and platforms, such as blogs, online forums, podcasts, wiki’s, online user review sites, RSS feeds and social networking web sites such MySpace, FaceBook and LinkedIn, which have allowed consumers with similar interests to find each other online, communicate better and share information. Other technologies have helped consumers to determine how they want this content to be delivered to their desktop or portable device. Consumers can now skip ads (Tivo), use software to block ads and pop-ups, filter email messages and delete cookies. On top of this, marketers have to deal with the fact that consumers have become more skeptical about traditional advertising and rely more and more on friends, colleagues and peers for product and service recommendations. To deal with this new reality, online marketers and business owners must adapt to this new social media environment and find creative ways to promote their brands, products and services. This has already begun as social media tools are used by many marketers to place and spread their marketing message, and to generate large amounts of web site traffic using social media tools. |
