Intro To Social Media Marketing

To be completely honest, I never thought of social media as something complicated or needing a lot of effort. That is, until I read Chapter 1 of Essentials of Social Media Marketting by Michelle Charello. Social media is not only much more complex than I thought on the technical spectrum in terms of setting up and developing software online, but also more complex in how it relates to the business world in its many marketing opportunities, metrics that it provides businesses, and even potential career opportunities.

To say that I was dumbfounded as I continued to read would be an understatement. I never truly realized how valuable social media is from a marketing perspective, but looking back after reading it makes a lot of sense. With statistics like 22.8% of users reporting that they see social media ads from all of their favorite brands, it’s no wonder why social media is such a valuable opportunity for businesses to continue to grow and reach new demographics via a new, intuitive marketing strategy. Social media is so universal it is in today’s age one of the most, if not the most, effective marketing tactic. And another concept I never really thought of was the consumer playing the role of marketer as a content creator for a brand, but that also has become apparent to me after reading. Reading about the effective strategy Doritos employed of using customer created videos to use as an advertisement made me think about how businesses may use this strategy today in such a social media oriented society. The main scenario I see this happening in is companies sponsoring content creators that are already users of their products to emphasize the product more to their fanbase via either an already-made advertisement placement or the creators directly telling their fanbase about the good or service. This is a strategy I also was somewhat unaware of until reading this chapter, but looking back on it I find it almost ignorant of myself that I never noticed it before.

 I also failed to realize the amount of job opportunities that social media provides in the marketing world. I always figured that companies don’t hire exclusively for these positions and almost push them to the side in a way. I suppose this is from my prior experiences of school-ran organizations where the responsibility of being a social media creator for the organization was considered something of a small, extra job to stack on top of their primary work. Seeing how companies really do outsource in some regards, and take initiative to employ those who can help provide a jump to their social media marketing is something that makes me interested in this class much more. That perhaps I, after pursuing PR at ONU, can maybe snag one of these jobs. But in conclusion, I have learned much about the world of social media marketing already within this first chapter, and am excited to learn more.