Grade: Distinction
A1. Social Media Websites
Developments in social media affect the way businesses promote products and
services:
Social media websites are constantly evolving and new features are introduced
regularly
Ever since, the invention of the world wide web by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 the internet has
started being used as a communication tool. Whether it is just to communicate information or to
have a conversation, the internet has been connecting people from around the world for decades.
The internet became a fast-inexpensive way to gain recognition and exposure, through rise of the
social media websites like “Twitter”,” Facebook”, “Instagram”, “Snapchat” and “YouTube”. Which
many businesses started picking up on and found a relatively straight forward way to expand.
However, social media is a very volatile environment, with new trends and features emerging
constantly meaning it is very hard to keep up to date on these trends as those trends affect the
popularity of the content posted on the specific page. This means that the content must be regularly
checked and updated in accordance to those trends, to fit and match the specific audience of the
people, that the business is trying to reach. This results with a need for managing of the specific
website, as any inappropriate move may cause drastic consequences, which will result with an
overflow of either negative or positive feedback. Social media keeps expanding itself, every day as
entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg (Co-Founder of Facebook) and Larry Page (Co-Founder of
Google) are adding new features aiming for continuous improvement.
Features, structure and target audience of different social media websites,
e.g. Facebook, Twitter™, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube.
Facebook has been launched by Mark Zuckerberg in February of 2004. Facebook is since then has
reached many milestones, such as it has turned into the most popular social media platform.
Currently Facebook user count has just reached 2.1+ Billion (according to Donelly. G) and due to that
It connects so many people, Facebook has started being used by companies to promote their
content through indirect advertising to huge audiences, rapidly. Facebooks users tend to be all of
kinds of people with different backgrounds and age therefore it seems perfect to be used by
companies to promote, no matter whether they are targeting male audiences or female audiences
Facebook seems perfect to fit all. If a business was selling, top branded clothes, and top brands such
as “Supreme or Gucci” locally then the target audience is people over the age of 18 that like luxury
and are searching for luxurious clothes in a specific area. However, if the company needs to expand
to worldwide then switching the target audience is worldwide as then on Facebook you just are not
limiting yourself to one specific demographic, they are just expanding the range of their current one
in order to locate their target market. Facebook began as a communicator. Its main purpose was to
help people renew their old friendships, and to help people stay in touch. Their target audience
when they launched was just students, it was initially intended to help students communicate
between themselves. However, as soon as they realised that Facebook could have much more uses
then just for students they, changed their target market and they changed it to everyone on the
planet. They essentially wanted to make communication between people of all kinds of backgrounds
and ages easier. Throughout the years a lot of updates have been added into Facebook, such as
small subtle features that have made it easier for people to communicate such as Social media
influencers with their audiences, friends communicating together or bigger businesses speaking with
their customer base. The features added that enabled a better to help its users, fulfil the purpose of
,Grade: Distinction
the website, Facebook has added a lot of useful features such as “friend list”, “Facebook stories” and
Facebook messenger to ensure people stay constantly connected and updated with their friends.
Facebook also offers the ability to create groups and fan pages which allow people from different
societies to come together with same interests. Facebook is a website that is very flexible meaning it
is allowing all sorts of different content type meaning images, videos, text and many more. Many
more live features such as the “stories”, “statuses” allows the users to constantly be up to date, with
what their friends are doing .The users can also interact with the content posted by either their
friends or anyone else through the “like” button and “comment” button where they can express
their thoughts or simply communicate with friends on their latest posts, which appear on the “feed”
along many other specific advertisements that have been chosen based on the browsing history and
the information that you have inputted, posts from the companies that you are following. With all of
this data about the users being collected, all sorts of businesses can benefit from Facebook
Marketing. Facebook has enough data about their to successfully, forward the right product to the
exact target market, meaning that the company does not have to do the promotion themselves.
With millions of businesses using Facebook as a way of promotion the market on Facebook tends to
be really competitive, therefore a company has to come up with originality in order to gain some
new attention from their possible target audience. In order to aim at the target audience, the
business must have a target user profile to understand how to find that demographic of target
audience. It is important that the target user profile is as detailed as possible so that Facebook
directs the advert about the products only to the people that might be interested. This is a big
advantage for all businesses that are only searching for a specific audience, as Facebook can
specifically target any kind of people. Therefore, if the businesses target audience is “Dyson vacuum
owners, over 25, within a 5-mile radius of Loughborough”, then Facebook can offer specifically those
demographics to the company meaning that they can optimise their chances of making a sale. This
is good because as a company owner, you do not have to worry that your products are not going to
the wrong target market people meaning that nobody that is interested in animals and are under 18
should receive it, as it would be wasteful and not effective as these sorts of people are not the target
market so they are not very likely to purchase the product. The hardest thing to deal with on social
media is when two different companies try to sell the same product. This means that both of the
companies are sharing the same target market, rivalling against each other to sell most of the same
product. In most cases, the both of the companies tend to come up with more creative campaigns
until one of them takes a dominant lead within the sales, whether its due to the unique design of the
product or a slightly better quality. However, companies such as NIKE and Adidas hold roughly equal
market share within the same sector, however it proves that companies that are selling the same
things can also be equal. In terms, both companies Nike and Adidas over the years have came up
with many different campaigns on Facebook however neither of them has managed to take the
podium. This shows that sites like Facebook, help gather an audience together, because it’s the fact
that their products are similar, and that’s what the fans love about the two companies. This is
beneficial for smaller companies, as this shows that once a loyal community has been created and
the right content for the community produced, any company can expand and will not be taken out
by bigger competitors. The right content can be determined through using the target audience
profile. In this instance both Adidas, and Nike keep their consumers excited for the new designs of
sneakers, or clothes. However, this is not what distinguishes them, what distinguishes them is the
types of campaigns they come up with. Nike’s #JUSTDOIT campaign was the most successful one
they ever introduced, whereas Adidas’ most famous campaign was #MYNEOSHOOT. Both of the
companies have created comedic and serious adverts, as well as partnered up with celebrities.
However, it’s the hashtag that made the biggest social media presence with millions of fans getting
involved, and Adidas and NIKE both posting footage of their fans on to their pages with along with
, Grade: Distinction
giveaways. This means that a company does not have to be the best and the biggest, in order to
attract large traffic of target audiences, however it is the fact that the audience needs to be involved
that really matters. Both companies offer a huge social media presence, with Facebook being the
main tool used by them to contact their fans. Whether it’s on their page through their audience
commenting on their post, or whether it is through the “message me” button the fans can contact
the brand directly and through the fact that both of these brands offer such an easy and a
comfortable environment, it became almost vital for those brands to setting their standards in the
target consumers eyes. This is good for any sort of company as this makes the whole experience of
communicating with customers pleasant, and manageable by the company, so its advantageous for
both sides as the consumer will feel appreciated by the brand for such easy and comfortable way to
be reached, and the company can easily manage all of the conversations at all times. In addition,
Facebook has added artificial intelligence that can be set up for quick responses, and is very
mouldable. This is good as quick basic queries can be answered almost immediately, whereas the
more complex questions can be directed to a human. This is good for a company because they can
fully control, the conversation making sure that the customer gets an answer that they are fully
satisfied with, and that the conversation is fully monitored to avoid any mistakes from the bot’s side.
Twitter has on average 328 Million active monthly users, with 500 million tweets sent per day
according to Aslam,S. Twitter is a communicator that bases itself around sending short messages
that have 280 characters each named “Tweets” which can be about anything or just images to a
feed. Those tweets will be displayed to the followers of the user that wrote the tweet. As Twitter is
reasonably smaller then Facebook, the number of adverts within Twitter is reasonably smaller which
results with a greater conversion rates then at Facebook. Twitter’s target audience is mainly older
people, that do not like to be overloaded with information as they are only receiving straight
forward simple tweets. Twitter itself is a very flexible social media tool as people all around the
world can tweet in their national language excluding Korean and Japanese. Twitter’s users are
mostly wealthy such as famous personalities that have their own following. This means that Twitter
is a better place to advertise more expensive items like Gucci clothing or etc. This is because those
people will be in a better position afford those types of wear. Twitter itself is just like Facebook in
many ways constantly aiming for improvement through releasing new updates and features which
make the website easier in use and navigate around.
Instagram has 500 million monthly active users and over 95 million of photos and videos get
uploaded a day according to Parker. Instagram is a very limited webpage that only allows for content
of either photos or videos. Since it was acquisitioned by Facebook on 10th of April 2012, Instagram
shares the same constant feedback template using Likes and Comments. Instagram’s target
audience is generally younger people that are into photography, it is very rare to see anybody over
the age of 60 on Instagram, which does not make it a very good. Instagram is mainly used to
promote Fitness and Photography, however thanks to Facebook, demographics it’s a cheaper
alternative to promote all kinds of products as Facebook uses the information about demographics
on both platforms. Instagram is a great platform for promoting clothes and fitness products as the
image and tags is a perfect combination for attracting traffic. An example of this technique being
used successfully was made by the National Geographic, that was only posting images of wildlife,
with good description as well as giving credit to the photographers allowing them to expand. This
campaign has accumulated for the National Geographic over 85 million followers. The reason why I
believe this marketing campaign was successful on Instagram is because, Facebook’s insights tool
only targeted a specific target audience, such as It did not attract any people who like memes, any
people who were into trolling online. It only attracted people that were either lovers of nature and
the demographics tool only targeted people that might be intrigued by the exceedingly good images.
A1. Social Media Websites
Developments in social media affect the way businesses promote products and
services:
Social media websites are constantly evolving and new features are introduced
regularly
Ever since, the invention of the world wide web by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 the internet has
started being used as a communication tool. Whether it is just to communicate information or to
have a conversation, the internet has been connecting people from around the world for decades.
The internet became a fast-inexpensive way to gain recognition and exposure, through rise of the
social media websites like “Twitter”,” Facebook”, “Instagram”, “Snapchat” and “YouTube”. Which
many businesses started picking up on and found a relatively straight forward way to expand.
However, social media is a very volatile environment, with new trends and features emerging
constantly meaning it is very hard to keep up to date on these trends as those trends affect the
popularity of the content posted on the specific page. This means that the content must be regularly
checked and updated in accordance to those trends, to fit and match the specific audience of the
people, that the business is trying to reach. This results with a need for managing of the specific
website, as any inappropriate move may cause drastic consequences, which will result with an
overflow of either negative or positive feedback. Social media keeps expanding itself, every day as
entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg (Co-Founder of Facebook) and Larry Page (Co-Founder of
Google) are adding new features aiming for continuous improvement.
Features, structure and target audience of different social media websites,
e.g. Facebook, Twitter™, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube.
Facebook has been launched by Mark Zuckerberg in February of 2004. Facebook is since then has
reached many milestones, such as it has turned into the most popular social media platform.
Currently Facebook user count has just reached 2.1+ Billion (according to Donelly. G) and due to that
It connects so many people, Facebook has started being used by companies to promote their
content through indirect advertising to huge audiences, rapidly. Facebooks users tend to be all of
kinds of people with different backgrounds and age therefore it seems perfect to be used by
companies to promote, no matter whether they are targeting male audiences or female audiences
Facebook seems perfect to fit all. If a business was selling, top branded clothes, and top brands such
as “Supreme or Gucci” locally then the target audience is people over the age of 18 that like luxury
and are searching for luxurious clothes in a specific area. However, if the company needs to expand
to worldwide then switching the target audience is worldwide as then on Facebook you just are not
limiting yourself to one specific demographic, they are just expanding the range of their current one
in order to locate their target market. Facebook began as a communicator. Its main purpose was to
help people renew their old friendships, and to help people stay in touch. Their target audience
when they launched was just students, it was initially intended to help students communicate
between themselves. However, as soon as they realised that Facebook could have much more uses
then just for students they, changed their target market and they changed it to everyone on the
planet. They essentially wanted to make communication between people of all kinds of backgrounds
and ages easier. Throughout the years a lot of updates have been added into Facebook, such as
small subtle features that have made it easier for people to communicate such as Social media
influencers with their audiences, friends communicating together or bigger businesses speaking with
their customer base. The features added that enabled a better to help its users, fulfil the purpose of
,Grade: Distinction
the website, Facebook has added a lot of useful features such as “friend list”, “Facebook stories” and
Facebook messenger to ensure people stay constantly connected and updated with their friends.
Facebook also offers the ability to create groups and fan pages which allow people from different
societies to come together with same interests. Facebook is a website that is very flexible meaning it
is allowing all sorts of different content type meaning images, videos, text and many more. Many
more live features such as the “stories”, “statuses” allows the users to constantly be up to date, with
what their friends are doing .The users can also interact with the content posted by either their
friends or anyone else through the “like” button and “comment” button where they can express
their thoughts or simply communicate with friends on their latest posts, which appear on the “feed”
along many other specific advertisements that have been chosen based on the browsing history and
the information that you have inputted, posts from the companies that you are following. With all of
this data about the users being collected, all sorts of businesses can benefit from Facebook
Marketing. Facebook has enough data about their to successfully, forward the right product to the
exact target market, meaning that the company does not have to do the promotion themselves.
With millions of businesses using Facebook as a way of promotion the market on Facebook tends to
be really competitive, therefore a company has to come up with originality in order to gain some
new attention from their possible target audience. In order to aim at the target audience, the
business must have a target user profile to understand how to find that demographic of target
audience. It is important that the target user profile is as detailed as possible so that Facebook
directs the advert about the products only to the people that might be interested. This is a big
advantage for all businesses that are only searching for a specific audience, as Facebook can
specifically target any kind of people. Therefore, if the businesses target audience is “Dyson vacuum
owners, over 25, within a 5-mile radius of Loughborough”, then Facebook can offer specifically those
demographics to the company meaning that they can optimise their chances of making a sale. This
is good because as a company owner, you do not have to worry that your products are not going to
the wrong target market people meaning that nobody that is interested in animals and are under 18
should receive it, as it would be wasteful and not effective as these sorts of people are not the target
market so they are not very likely to purchase the product. The hardest thing to deal with on social
media is when two different companies try to sell the same product. This means that both of the
companies are sharing the same target market, rivalling against each other to sell most of the same
product. In most cases, the both of the companies tend to come up with more creative campaigns
until one of them takes a dominant lead within the sales, whether its due to the unique design of the
product or a slightly better quality. However, companies such as NIKE and Adidas hold roughly equal
market share within the same sector, however it proves that companies that are selling the same
things can also be equal. In terms, both companies Nike and Adidas over the years have came up
with many different campaigns on Facebook however neither of them has managed to take the
podium. This shows that sites like Facebook, help gather an audience together, because it’s the fact
that their products are similar, and that’s what the fans love about the two companies. This is
beneficial for smaller companies, as this shows that once a loyal community has been created and
the right content for the community produced, any company can expand and will not be taken out
by bigger competitors. The right content can be determined through using the target audience
profile. In this instance both Adidas, and Nike keep their consumers excited for the new designs of
sneakers, or clothes. However, this is not what distinguishes them, what distinguishes them is the
types of campaigns they come up with. Nike’s #JUSTDOIT campaign was the most successful one
they ever introduced, whereas Adidas’ most famous campaign was #MYNEOSHOOT. Both of the
companies have created comedic and serious adverts, as well as partnered up with celebrities.
However, it’s the hashtag that made the biggest social media presence with millions of fans getting
involved, and Adidas and NIKE both posting footage of their fans on to their pages with along with
, Grade: Distinction
giveaways. This means that a company does not have to be the best and the biggest, in order to
attract large traffic of target audiences, however it is the fact that the audience needs to be involved
that really matters. Both companies offer a huge social media presence, with Facebook being the
main tool used by them to contact their fans. Whether it’s on their page through their audience
commenting on their post, or whether it is through the “message me” button the fans can contact
the brand directly and through the fact that both of these brands offer such an easy and a
comfortable environment, it became almost vital for those brands to setting their standards in the
target consumers eyes. This is good for any sort of company as this makes the whole experience of
communicating with customers pleasant, and manageable by the company, so its advantageous for
both sides as the consumer will feel appreciated by the brand for such easy and comfortable way to
be reached, and the company can easily manage all of the conversations at all times. In addition,
Facebook has added artificial intelligence that can be set up for quick responses, and is very
mouldable. This is good as quick basic queries can be answered almost immediately, whereas the
more complex questions can be directed to a human. This is good for a company because they can
fully control, the conversation making sure that the customer gets an answer that they are fully
satisfied with, and that the conversation is fully monitored to avoid any mistakes from the bot’s side.
Twitter has on average 328 Million active monthly users, with 500 million tweets sent per day
according to Aslam,S. Twitter is a communicator that bases itself around sending short messages
that have 280 characters each named “Tweets” which can be about anything or just images to a
feed. Those tweets will be displayed to the followers of the user that wrote the tweet. As Twitter is
reasonably smaller then Facebook, the number of adverts within Twitter is reasonably smaller which
results with a greater conversion rates then at Facebook. Twitter’s target audience is mainly older
people, that do not like to be overloaded with information as they are only receiving straight
forward simple tweets. Twitter itself is a very flexible social media tool as people all around the
world can tweet in their national language excluding Korean and Japanese. Twitter’s users are
mostly wealthy such as famous personalities that have their own following. This means that Twitter
is a better place to advertise more expensive items like Gucci clothing or etc. This is because those
people will be in a better position afford those types of wear. Twitter itself is just like Facebook in
many ways constantly aiming for improvement through releasing new updates and features which
make the website easier in use and navigate around.
Instagram has 500 million monthly active users and over 95 million of photos and videos get
uploaded a day according to Parker. Instagram is a very limited webpage that only allows for content
of either photos or videos. Since it was acquisitioned by Facebook on 10th of April 2012, Instagram
shares the same constant feedback template using Likes and Comments. Instagram’s target
audience is generally younger people that are into photography, it is very rare to see anybody over
the age of 60 on Instagram, which does not make it a very good. Instagram is mainly used to
promote Fitness and Photography, however thanks to Facebook, demographics it’s a cheaper
alternative to promote all kinds of products as Facebook uses the information about demographics
on both platforms. Instagram is a great platform for promoting clothes and fitness products as the
image and tags is a perfect combination for attracting traffic. An example of this technique being
used successfully was made by the National Geographic, that was only posting images of wildlife,
with good description as well as giving credit to the photographers allowing them to expand. This
campaign has accumulated for the National Geographic over 85 million followers. The reason why I
believe this marketing campaign was successful on Instagram is because, Facebook’s insights tool
only targeted a specific target audience, such as It did not attract any people who like memes, any
people who were into trolling online. It only attracted people that were either lovers of nature and
the demographics tool only targeted people that might be intrigued by the exceedingly good images.
