Research Paper
Applying Social Media for Business Growth
PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING 325
Heather Holland
March 6, 2013
Montana Tech of the University of Montana
Instructor: Dr. Traci O’Neill

ABSTRACT:

Social Media is a form of keeping in contact with friends, family, employers, and employees. It is also for companies to promote their products to consumers who are also members of the sites the company posts their product on. This can become a viral form of advertising because each product that is viewed by one person will then also is seen by at least all their contacts within their social media site. More and more companies are using this form of media for advertising because it can be from a very small cost to even free. Also the possibility of how many consumers may end up seeing their ad.
Contained in this paper is an outline of various types of social media and how they may help your company, as well as basic info on how to use them. One of the most important aspects of a social media site is that it has analytics. This is a counting system that counts every time someone views your item, blog, company etc. The analytics system can be advanced enough to tell you where else in your site the consumer looked after clicking on your product. This is a great utility for any marketer so that they may know if their ad is working for each item and if not they can redesign and update and compare the new analytics for this product with the old analytics. (226)

INTRO:
I have wanted to know how to use Google analytics for business and other ways to further assist my friend with utilizing social media for his business. I know how to use some social media but am confused when trying some of the newer forms so I just stay with what I know. My son keeps me pretty up to date; I just started Instagram a couple months ago and love its simplicity. I had started a Twitter account a couple years ago but didn’t really get the point. It seems to be just comments about various items. I just figured it was a waste of time so I hope to learn more about it.
It is time to expand my knowledge of other forms of social media and how to apply them in my daily life. I think the first hurdle for anyone is taking time to get used to something new. This will be a great business utility while helping me to keep up with the times. I can expand a customer base and knowledge of my friends company through the information I learn. I know that this practice, while helping his company now, will ready me to use social media for my business someday. I will learn what works and doesn’t and have the experience of setting up Brand awareness in all the varied forms of social media.
EXAMPLES AND CASE STUDIES:
Case Study:
“I once sent a Tweet out complaining about my mobile phone service. Within an hour they had rung me up and given me a new phone for free to apologize as well as switching me to a better reception provider. This would never happen before social media because companies weren’t afraid of our networking influence. Now they are.” (Ramsay, 2012) Personal Case Study:
I thought this was interesting so I tried it myself with the Magic Tap that we had purchased around Christmas. We were using it as instructed in directions and it states you can use for milk. We have had 6 gallons of milk go bad so we bought two more. We opened them at the same time one with magic tap and one with the cap still on. We used both of them each day and by the morning of day 3 the Magic Tap milk was bad again. I let them know how I felt about this and the fact that I was giving this milk to my children and my attention was first directed by my child saying “this is yucky” followed by her puking. I went to their site and messaged them and told them I would put on my Facebook if they did not respond immediately. I messaged them on the evening of February 27th which is a Wednesday and they emailed me back the following Monday which was March