The effect social media and Internet advertising has on the success of a brand.

BY ALAN SARIEDDINE

November 26, 2019


Advertising has been around for many years, long before the introduction of social media and the internet. Social Media has provided brands with a new way to advertise their products that is more convenient and effective than traditional advertising methods. With internet in the picture, advertising has never been easier and is accessible by people all over the world, expanding target markets and reaching more potential customers.

Advertising is defined as a means of communication with the users of a product or service. The first ever printed advertisement appeared in England in 1492, but it was not until 1704 that a newspaper advertisement came into existence in the United States. However, advertising through print was not commonplace until Benjamin Franklin persuaded businesses to advertise their products in his magazine in 1742. These advertisements proved to be effective as businesses began adding illustrations and colors to their in order to capture the attention of the reader. Advertisements began to seem more appealing to customers and became a way for businesses to reach broader audiences while increasing market penetration. The golden age of advertising began in 1941 when the world’s first TV ad aired setting the precedent for the next 70 years. Back then, advertisements were exciting for the people seeing different products appearing on their televisions or radios. New advertising techniques were implemented by businesses to differentiate their ads from others. For example, characters and stories were built and integrated to create a connection between viewers and brands; celebrities were brought in to promote and represent all kinds of new products. Television had a great impact on advertising, but there has been one medium that’s had a greater impact on advertising than anything before it; the internet.

The internet is one of the greatest milestones in recent years, providing a whole new avenue to access information in the easiest way possible. Internet is defined as a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, one of which being social media. Social media is a form of electronic communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content. Social Media has become a part of everyday life. What started off as a way to interact with others around the world with the click of a few buttons has become a powerful force in today’s society. It was not long until brands began to take advantage of Social Media. Brands began to broadcast their products through different apps to reach their consumers. A lot of brands have devoted most of their advertising focus towards social media advertising, establishing digital marketing teams to focus on ad campaigns to be broadcasted online in an attempt to expand the reach to more and more customers. A survey conducted by CMO showed that companies currently spend 12% of their marketing budgets on social media, this has increased from 3.5% in 2009. The ease of Social Media advertising has caused brands to take advantage of all kinds of online platforms, like Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, etc.. A brand can gain exposure almost overnight as has been seen by many different successful businesses. Reaching your target market as well as potential customers through one platform has made Social Media advertising the main channel for brands connection with consumers. Almost 4.48 billion people were active internet users as of October 2019; now, consumers are spending more time than ever using social media, making social media advertising much more convenient and effective than any other form of advertising. Social media plays an important role in how consumers discover, research, and share information about brands and products. A survey conducted by nielsen.com showed that 60 percent of consumers researching products through multiple online sources learned about a specific brand or retailer through social networking sites. Social media has become the preferred source for people to learn about new products because of its accessibility and availability. The simplicity of Social Media advertising outweighs any other platform. Social Media has helped advertising a lot, but it has also made it more difficult. Due to the large number of different products and the numerous advertisements, it has become much harder to capture the attention of consumers. Although Social Media advertising is great for brands, it also has many negatives that can break a brand down. It is very easy for a company to gain recognition overnight but at the same it is very easy to fall. Unplanned messages are a big problem when it comes to Social Media advertising. Social media gives your customers a voice and allows them to interact with and about you. While that is excellent when your customers are happy, it can pose a huge problem when unhappy customers use social media to talk about their problems. Sometimes, customers complain about the products and services you offer directly on social media without even getting in touch first. Similarly, any bad publicity related to an employee can create a bad image for the whole company. An example of this is Pepsi who released an ad starring Kendall Jenner that got a lot of criticism online and forced Pepsi to release an official apology to its customers.

Social Media advertising provides a lot of benefits, one of which is that it is very cost-effective for the customer and the brand. For the customers, signing up and creating a profile is free for almost all social networking platforms, and any paid promotions you decide to invest in are at a relatively low cost compared to other marketing tactics. Brands, are able to reach a lot of people through different platforms with each platform giving a unique way to advertise such as Instagram, that has emerged as a key platform for real estate, which is driven by images and personalities. All platforms have their own benefits as well. Some are used more than others which means that brands trying to gain exposure should aim for the big platforms such as Facebook and Twitter for establishing brand recognition. Advertising on Social Media platforms increase user experience and loyalty because they allow communication with potential clients. Customer service is a very important part behind every brand; JetBlue can be reached very easily through Twitter where they answer questions from their customers instantly providing customers an incentive to choose their services. To differentiate themselves some brands choose to partner with influencers, while others advertise by relating to their followers. Pizza Hut uses its Twitter to joke around with its followers, which makes the brand more relatable and in return encourages customers to consider their products. The biggest benefit of Social Media advertising is simply that most people are on social media, therefore If a business utilizes ads in order to advertise themselves, their brand awareness and market visibility will increase.

The emergence of Social Media and Digital Advertising has helped brands increase awareness towards their products but at the same time it has adversely affected brands and made it more difficult to advertise them. This is largely due to the amount of ads that are seen by people everyday that makes it harder to capture the attention of customers. In the past, avoiding ads was very hard to do. An example is when you were in your car listening to the radio, you could not skip over an advertisement when trying to listen to your favorite song. Today with the implementation of Bluetooth, many people do not even listen to the radio anymore, moreover music apps that do also contain ads have provided people with the option to pay a monthly fee to listen to music without the interruption of ads. Another example are TV ads. Over time cable television is fading away from society because of the new streaming services that allow you to stream any show on demand without ads. This has eliminated the anticipation of waiting for your favorite show through the multiple ads that come in between each scene. During sports games the excitement of seeing ads has gone away with viewers using this time to browse through social media or to go to the bathroom. This demonstrates that as difficult Social Media advertising is, traditional advertising has become even harder because of the many alternatives that have been introduced to decrease its visibility. The benefits of Social Media advertising outweigh those of traditional advertising, increasing brand exposure, loyalty, and experience in a more convenient and cost-effective manner.


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