Rososhik+K.+Final+report

Rososhik K.

As far as I can tell, the problem is with the link to:

(http://www.business.com/info/business-social-media-benchmark-study)

That is just a page to register to get a PDF. I don't know whether you got images from that source or not. But the only way to get them onto a wiki page is to download them or screen shot them to your own drive and then upload them to the page. I just had them send me the file, which I have posted here:



At this point I would say for you to just paste in the figure and page number from the PDF that you want to use and I may get around to putting the images in myself because you have to use Paint or some other image program.

= = =Proximity = A next generation connection

 Proximity Research Report

**Marketing Your Business through Facebook **  //Facebook will transform the marketing and advertising of your business // By Karina Rososhik 

Spring 2010

= = **Table of Contents ** 

Executive Summary 1

Introduction: Social Networking as means of Advertisement 2

The Growth of Facebook Active users 3

Facebook Advertising and how it Works 4

Businesses can greatly benefit from Social-Media 5

Implications of Marketing through Facebook 6

2009 Statistics about Facebooks' users 7

2010 Statistics about Facebooks’ users 8

Companies use the following Social-Networking sites 9

Recommendations 10

References 11

**Executive Summary ** = = Facebook became the social networking site that Generation-Y users use the most. It is attractive place for businesses to reach and target users. Facebook presents a unique marketing opportunity for businesses through the creation of Facebook Business Pages. This report will show how businesses can use Facebook for marketing and advertisement for Generation-Y users. A focus group session was conducted. The results of the focus group indicated that there are positive attitude towards Facebook, using Facebook to reach Generation-Y users is effective, and if Facebook did not have such a large user base it wouldn’t be as successful. It is recommended for small and large businesses to join Facebook, and use its targeting tools to reach Generation-Y users.

**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Introduction: Social-Networking as means of advertisement **

In the 21st century, social networking is the way Generation-Y users communicate and integrate. It became extremely hard to reach users through traditional media (like T.V. ads, radio ads, and billboards). Therefore, companies need to find new ways to reach Generation-Y users. Because social networking is the source of so many users businesses should consider reaching users through it.

Traditional ways of advertisement stopped working for several reasons. People don’t have as much time to watch T.V., People barley listen to the radio, and enormous billboards are extremely expensive and are not always effective. However, it has been reported that Generation-Y users frequently use social networking web-sites, not only from their PC’s but also from their mobile phones. Generation-Y users are constantly connected to Social Networking sites like Facebook; therefore, it will be extremely convenient to target those users through Facebook. It has been reported that on March 16th, 2010, Facebook topped Google as the most visited website, which proves my point.

Proximity focus group results showed that advertisement through Facebook is tremendously effective. Furthermore, Generation-Y users reported that they are exposed to ads that they are actually interested in. This shows that Facebook does a great job at targeting user’s likes and dislikes and matching them with appropriate ads.

Facebook growth over the past few years created a social frenzy, the number of visitors to Facebook grown 185% from 2009. Matt Tatham, director of media relations at Hitwise said “"It's definitely a big moment for Facebook”. However it can be a big moment for your company/business to if you use the number one visited web-site.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">Below is a graph showing the growth of Facebook's active users from 2008-2009 <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal;"> **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Figure 1. The growth of Face in the past years <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px;">http://blog.hubspot.com/Portals/249/images//facebook%20users-resized-600.png ** **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Facebook advertising and how it works **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Facebook's new advertising programs represent the beginning of what social media advertising may look like. These programs include Facebook Pages, Social Ads, and Social-Networking Games.

Facebook has added a new "Pages" feature. It gives businesses and regular users the ability to create web-pages for themselves on Facebook. You can join a Page by becoming a "fan". Becoming a fan adds that Page's icon to your profile page under the "I am a Fan of..." panel. Your friends and colleagues may see what company/business you joined in their News-Feed. It becomes a word of mouth recommendation of that product/company/business.

If the company is running a Facebook Ad Campaign, they can choose to target "Social Actions" in their campaigns. With this feature enabled, those people who fan the Page may see the Ad listed among their News Feeds. Companies can also use the Facebook messaging system to communicate with their "fans." By becoming a fan you can post to that Page's wall. Giving the company the ability to receive straight comments, suggestions, and feed-back about their products. This creates intra-personal relationship between the brand/company and the end-user, which is an extremely important factor in business marketing and advertising.

Social Ads identify and bid on keywords, you chose the demographics and areas of interest to target for your ad. Finally, Facebook social networking games games are free to use, addictive, time consuming, and generate profit. One of the most popular games on Facebook is Farmville. Farmville attracts around 83 million users monthly, which is almost a quarter of all Facebook users. Therefore, games like Farmville, Café-World, and Mafia-Wars immediately become a marketing source.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">Businesses can greatly benefit from social media **

Source: Business.com’s 2009 Business Social Media Benchmarking Study (http://www.business.com/info/business-social-media-benchmark-study)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Figure 2. Social Media Success Metrics ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 169%;"> **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Implications of Marketing through Facebook ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Facebook provides companies with the ability to communicate with thousands of current and potential customers, investors, and other individuals central to the success of the business. Facebook can help your business prosper and attract many new Generation-Y users. Facebook is the way to target an audience in the 21st century.

Facebook sells spaces for banner ads along the sides of the Facebook page. Businesses have begun to use these ads to draw customers’ attention to their products. The ads are placed on certain pages determined by the data collected through your interests, location, groups, and your “Likes”. Even if we don’t direct our focus at the ad, subconsciously our brain sees this picture when scrolling through a person’s profile. Businesses can set up a public Facebook Groups or Fan Pages, which other users of the site can then join. They can create social ads, ad campaigns, and use social networking games to reach Generation-Y users. In addition, Businesses have also begun to network by creating application for their companies’ products.

Facebook creates the much needed interaction between businesses and the end-users. Users trust Facebook, and by joining groups they show their loyalty to the business/brand. These users are more prone to recommend the brand to their friends. Furthermore, your friends will be updated (through their News-Feed) that you have joined the group, and are more likely to join it too. This creates a “word-to-mouth” process that in extreme cases can reach millions upon millions of users adding/joining a group. This will tremendously help businesses build their reputation, trust, and brand name among current and potential users.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This is a 2009-2010 Comparison of Statistics about Facebooks' users <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">



<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: normal;"> **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Figure 3. 2009 Facebook user Statistics ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> http://www.istrategylabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/facebook_demographics_statistics_2009.png

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">· The 35-54 year old demo is growing fastest, with a 276.4% growth rate in over the approximate 6 months since we last produced this report. · The 55+ demo is not far behind with a 194.3% growth rate. · The 25-34 year population on Facebook is doubling every 6 months. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">



<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> http://www.istrategylabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/facebook_demographics_chart_statistics_2010.png
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Figure 4. 2010 Facebook user Statistics **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">· Facebook’s US user base grew from 42 million to 103 million in 2009. That’s a 144.9% growth rate! · The 35+ demographic now represents more than 30% of the entire user base. · The 55+ audience grew a whopping 922.7% in 2009.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 126%;">Companies use the following Social-Networking sites: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Source: Business.com’s 2009 Business Social Media Benchmarking Study (http://www.business.com/info/business-social-media-benchmark-study)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Figure 5. Which Social-Networking sites companies use **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">80% of companies maintain Facebook presence
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 56% of companies use Twitter

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 169%;"> **<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Recommendations ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Marketing through Social-Networking had been long proven to be affective and profitable for businesses. Facebook is a great social network that can provide cheap and effective advertisement and marketing. According to Wikipedia, if Facebook was a country it will be the third populated country (right behind China) with 400 million active users, Facebook should be the target of all businesses. Facebook can offer: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Through all these, Facebook almost guarantees you successful exposure, popularity, and recognition of your brand name. Therefore, It is recommended that Proximity adopts the new technologies and start exploiting the new possibilities it can gain from the use of Facebook. This will be an extremely successful and relatively cheap way to reach an enormous Generation-Y user base.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Fan-Pages
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Group-Pages
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Social-Networking Games
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">"Like-Pages"

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 22px; line-height: 32px;">**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">References: **

Business.com (2009). 2009 Social Media Benchmarking Study. Retrieved from http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/2009/12/28/what-social-media-can-do-for-your-business/ on May 3, 2010.

Harry Gold.(2008).Seven Ways to Advertise on Facebook/on April 29, 2010/ Retrieved from http://www.clickz.com/3630553

Heather Dougherty.(2010).Social network impact for retailers/on April 30, 2010/ Retrieved from http://weblogs.hitwise.com/heather-dougherty/2010/01/social_network_impact_for_reta.html?

Justin Smith.(2005). The Facebook Marketing Bible/ on May 2, 2010. Retrieved from http://www.insidefacebook.com/2007/12/09/inside-facebook-marketing-bible-24-ways-to-market-your-brand-company-product-or-service-in-Facebook/

Kermit Pattison.(2009).How to Market Your Business With Facebook/on May, 2010. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/business/smallbusiness/12guide.html?_r=1

Nick O'Neill.(2009).10-rules-for-advertising-on-facebook. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/10-rules-for-advertising-on-facebook-2009-7/ on May 1, 2010.

Paul Chaney. (2010).Social Media Works for Business, Study Says/ on April 23, 2010.Retrieved from http://www.mpdailyfix.com/social-media-works-for-business-study-says/

Proximity. (2010). Social Networking Focus Group Findings. Retrieved from http://engl317s10.wikispaces.com/MWF+1+social+networking+focus+group/ on May 2, 2010.

http://emediavitals.com/ article/17/5-tangible- benefits-facebook-fan-page http://www.mediapost.com/ publications/?fa=Articles. showArticle&art_aid=125954
 * Benefits that a business can get through the use of Facebook (the link doesn't work anymore for some reason)
 * Marketing through Social Networking sites is successful (this one doesn't work either)