Why social media marketing is taking over

My social media marketing research plans to start with exploring how things have changed and what this means for future social media studies.

On February 2004 Facebook was created and since then, there has never been a social media network with such a captivated audience. Web Index and Smart Insights identify "Social media users are now spending an average of 2 hours and 24 minutes per day multi networking across an average of 8 social networks and messaging apps" globally.

In this report, Datareportal identified that Australians spend 5.41 hours each day on any device but prefer to visit social media on their mobiles, with 49% on internet use being done on social media.

Thanks to Facebook, it has changed the way businesses and people are able to market and now other apps have now been created and aimed at specific activities which use Facebook as a login. This tracks your digital footprint and allows a funnel to identify your shopping profile.

https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-global-social-media-research/

Facebook was the original app you could see genuine feedback from customers on a product and the reason this became so big was that you could get real-time replies from a business. Social media has reinvented marketing ads and how we perceive them has changed. As generations have gotten older, apps have become the new social norm and now businesses need to be more in touch with their product and their customers than ever before.

Thanks to social media word of mouth has never been easier, with people spread all over the world connecting online. Brands recognise that word of mouth works just as well as, if not better, then paid promotions and now incorporate social media in their marketing plans. Information seeking has a positive influence on purchase intention and to encourage a connecting with customers, brands use social media to communicate with their customers.

Websites do this by using algorithms. Algorithms are part of Artificial Intelligence, AI, that can learn human behaviour to solve problems. This then funnels the information and uses Machine Learning, ML, to then predict what we need next, for example when your device uses predictive text. The internet has all different types of algorithms that companies and customers can use to their advantage. 

Paid promotion can be used to improve Search Engine Optimisation, SEO. This aims to place your business, product or brand at the top of the search of Google and is one of the best ways to gain SEO. Google Suggestions can be used to identify patterns and recognised related searches and list the most common websites accessed as a result of the search. Businesses can use this to identify keywords and trends that relate searches to competitors and used this research to optimises future web searches for their business. Social Media Optimisation, SMO, is considered earned promotion and refers to the likability and share-ability of a business, product or brand. The better your SMO the better result you will achieve on your SEO.

Flinders University and I are working alongside SACare on a project to investigate their online presence. More next week when we will be looking at SACare and how they optimise their online presences by investigating their SEO and SMO levels through using tools such as

• Google Suggest

• Google keywords

• Google Trends

Each can be used to create an influence on your information and funnel it towards an audience that will appreciate it.

For more research on social media marketing, check-in next week. In an effort to create visits I've created another blog post about iPhones. I suggest if you're a bit of an iPhone noob or are a child of one and need a new phone, check out my next post to find out easy ways to help pick the right iPhone for everybody.

Thanks, wish me luck for next week.

Stay Safe. Bye!