Vohra+A.+Final+Report

Vohra A.

Proximity A next generation connection
 * Proximity Research Report **

**Businesses Uses Social Networking for Target Marketing ** //Marketing on Social Network will change the view of Business strategy // by Azeem Vohra

Spring 2010

Table of Contents Executive Summary 1 Introduction: Social Media Power 2 Importance of Social Media Network 2 Impression of Social Media ad 3 Magnetic Marketing in Social Media 4 Options for Advertising 4 Recommendation 6 Attachment 1: Facebook 7 Attachment 2: Twitter 8 Attachment 3: MySpace 9 References 10

Social Networking- 1
 * Executive Summary **

Businesses have taken a new direction to advertise their product and services locally and abroad by using social networking sites. This approach is taken to target Gen Y users, since they are connected to their peers, family and friends on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and others. Businesses should learn and master the importance of social media marketing, since these sites can definitely help businesses to create direct interaction with users and provide its client with most recent information at all time. Businesses who ignores the fact social media is a new way of advertising fall into three categories; businesses who don’t know anything about social media, businesses who are interested but does not know how to use it, and businesses who doesn’t think that social media brings any value to any business. Different businesses may use different marketing strategy but as many businesses struggle thru today’s economy, Social media network helps them to advertise their product and services over the web for free of cost. Businesses have never benefit the most from any other marketing strategy for such a low cost as social media advertising provides. Clients and partners can be found on social media network as it is growing every day, but given the impact of this marketing strategy and learning the benefits of it can help businesses grow more effectively, Proximity clients should start their marketing on social media network today by communicating with one of our consultant.

Social Networking-2
 * Introduction: Social Media Power **

Social media is a powerful tool for individuals and businesses to stay connected either with their friends and family or client and business partners. Since 2004, social media network popularity has changed the life of people in ways they stay connected to their peers, family and friends around the world. This change has given businesses an opportunity to reach Gen Y users via social networking sites and grow their businesses drastically. · Facebook has more than 400 million active users on site and 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day (Facebook.com). · In terms of percentage points, social networks 68% more popular than e-mail 65% (Nielson, Cnet).

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Businesses around the globe are competing with each other every day and are looking to market its product and services in different ways to reach different target groups. One of those marketing strategy had to do with advertising thru internet, which is now to be known as social media marketing. In today’s tough economy businesses has taken an extra step to find its client thru social networking sites, which provides them to connect with their customers, get more attention from them and take advantage of the massive amount of traffic by having their client promote them to their friends and family members for more sales and productivity. According to Nielsen Company survey result, people spend six hours month on social media websites which is an increase of 82% percent over the year. This is one of the important facts for business owners and CEO of large corporations to understand that they can find more and more clients over the social media network. Another fact the article highlights is that Facebook is the top leading social networking site with “206.9 million unique visitors or 67 percent of all survey responders.”
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">How social media networks are important for businesses **

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: right;">Social Networking-3 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Figure 1: Global Traffic to Social Networking Sites <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">Source: The Nielsen Company ([])


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Impressions of social media ad **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Proximity has heard many complain from its clients and other business owners about need for guidance to exhibit social media ad thru social media network. Many businesses are not able to comprehend the use of social networking sites and do not know how to place their ad in a way that they are able to persuade their target audience. Many analyst suggest that businesses to become a fan of social engagement. By promoting social engagement can keep its interaction with target audience at maximum number of hours as study from the Nielson Company shows above.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: right;">Social Networking-4 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> The Magnetic Marketing is referred to the term “push and pull” strategy which is used in supply chain management at time of exchanging goods and services. This strategy is also used in social media network as “Past Push-Pull marketing” (Ron Callari). Couple years ago businesses were pushing the product to the consumer and consumer was taking the product when they have a need, but according to an article by Ron Callari, “ social media allowed ‘pull marketing’ to gain more prominence of the course… as social networks like Facebook and Twitter gave the consumer a voice.” Due to the “pull market” described by Ron Callari, a lot of companies had to take social media network properly to understand customer satisfaction. These lead businessses to communicate with clients and partners to build better relationship and market their product and service at low cost.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Magnetic Marketing in Social Media **


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Option for advertising **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There are many different social media networking sites to choose from when advertising on social media network. Some of these options include:


 * __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Facebook __**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is one of the most leading social networks as of today for Gen Y users and businesses. This network has more than 400 million users worldwide and 50% of those users are active users who visit the website every day (Facebook.com). According to an article by Nielsen Wire on the value of social media ad impression based on Facebook ads, says that it targets consumer in three different ways to “Become A Fan” of a business. First type of ad is a standard “Homepage Ad” which is from the standard Facebook page of a business. Second type of ad is more of a target ad with social context or “Homepage ads with Social Context.” Third type of ads is “Organize Ads” which are stories that are sent to people when their friend and family members are engaged with certain brand. All of these ads have no cost to any business. Experts do ask businesses to manage their ads efficiently and effectively so that target customers don’t lose focus. Since there are many social networking sites, it is important to understand which one of these sites will actually <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: right;">Social networking-5 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">help your business to grow. One of the most famous and recommended site for businesses today is Facebook [See Attachment 1].

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> This is another most leading network known in the industry of social networks. The purpose of this network is the “know.” It is to be describes as mini-blog that is used to update peers, family, friends and followers who are following you. Many celebrities, Gen Y crowd, business owners, CEO of a company and many others uses this site to update the most recent information to let their audience know what is happening now. This site is very simple to use and it takes no time to join. Once you have joined twitter, it is free to send messages and update your “tweets” any minute from your computer, cell phone or PDA. According to Sarah Perez, “4 ways Companies are using twitter for business,” and which include “direct” tweets; where it is been used for marketing purpose. Another is “indirect” tweets in which companies let employees tweet instead. In addition companies uses “internal” tweets to communicate with employees and last but not least “inbound signaling” tweets where businesses are the “listeners” and trying to understand what is being said about them. This site is used by most of the businesses [See Attachment 2]
 * __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Twitter __**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Last but not least, this is another social network that people worldwide uses. Over the year MySpace may have lost its popularity but users who understand the feature that MySpace provides, they enjoy being on it. Businesses can use MySpace to generate leads that share same interest. It sounds good to generate leads with same interest because you don’t waste too much time targeting other people who are not interested, but believe it or not every person is targeted is a potential customer and MySpace is one of the social network that has many different people with wide variety of interest who are looking to expand as the network is expanding. Therefore, businesses have an opportunity to take the advantage of it and being successful by creating more and more clients [See Attachment 3].
 * __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">MySpace __**

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: right;">Social Networking-6 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> It is important for clients of Proximity who are using social media network or are looking to use social media network needs to know and understand the importance of this network for their business growths. There many different choices of networks businesses can choose from when connecting with clients and partners. · <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Facebook · <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Twitter · <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">MySpace
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Recommendations **

Some of these choices are better than others for businesses to be able to reach target users and market their product and services. Even though many businesses are not ready to join social media for various reason, this reports highlights the benefit of knowing and learning it which will help them understand how fast they can reach target audience in no time. Therefore, new comers have to go through the process of understanding social media network so that it is easier for them to understand how to communicate with target audience at all time. This social media ad strategy helps businesses cut cost and have the ability to send their client with most up to date information. Most recommended social media network is Facebook, which can reach more audience than any other network since it has tremendous growth and traffic using social network. Facebook gives business the ability to: · <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Reach more than 400 million active users · <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Provide free advertising application · <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Advertise one ad in three different ways · <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Target certain group or type of people

Facebook is the most leading social networks that can help any business grow, if used efficiently and effectively at all times.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: right;">Social Networking-7 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Below is the Facebook site home page, click join to start advertising your product and services.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Attachment 1: Facebook **

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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Social Networking-8 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Below is the Twitter website, it takes only few minutes to join the most usage network by businesses around the world. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> []
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Attachment 2: Twitter **

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: right;">Social Networking-9 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> []
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Attachment 3: MySpace **

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: right;">Social Networking-10 Callari, Ron. (n.d.). //Magnetic marketing in social media pushes past push-pull marketing//. Retrieved from [] Carter, Mia. (2008). What is Twitter?. //Suite101//, Retrieved from [] Ceoworld Magazine, Initials. (2009, May 05). //Social networking- an important business tool//. Retrieved from [] Dosh, Initials. (n.d.). //The Importance of social media marketings: why you should learn and master it//. Retrieved from [] //Facebook//. (n.d.). Retrieved from [] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Gibs, Jon. (2010, April 20). //The Value of social media ad impressions//. Retrieved from [] //Myspace//. (n.d.). Retrieved from [] Nielsen,. (2010, Janvuary 23). //Social media use jumped 82% in a year//. Retrieved from [] Perez, Sarah. (2009, March 26). //4 ways companies use twitter for business//. Retrieved from [] //Twitter//. (n.d.). Retrieved from []
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">References **