Social Networking and its effect on businesses today.

Social Networking and its effect on businesses today.

The use of the Social networking platforms has become the new marketing tool used by many companies and small business owners to familiarize people with their brands. Social networking advertising has made a positive impact on businesses profit and public visibility in the recent years. These types of sites have paved the way for businesses and consumers to interact while frequenting a central virtual location. While the social network sites become popular, they have to find way to fund their overhead. The way to do this is by advertising. As technology moves forward so does, the way businesses market their intended audiences. A more targeted audience looks at company purchased ad space on websites and social networks, the ads. The ads are located on home pages of members on these types of sites. The ads there were purchased are viewed by users of the networking sites. Their viewed on social networking sites, like Facebook, My Space, and Twitter, to name a popular few.
Social networking is an online community application hosted on the internet that assists with connecting people on a global scale. To access a social network one must choose a particular site to access. Once a person chooses a social website of their liking, they are than instructed to create a profile; this will uniquely indentify them as a user. Third parties host these types of profiles and they remain until the user deletes their own profile. Online Social networks are networks that are websites built as a mirror image of a live community for people to come together virtually to share common interest. Moreover, a social network is a place to socialize and gather people via the internet who would have not otherwise met. Encounters between people can be worldwide. These online communities bring people and families together.
People are being, connected by these applications, into many different categories, likenesses, and groups. People are able to connect with family or become a fan of their favorite artist or company. Users either utilize this platform for praise products or give their opinion about their experiences with certain companies. This can affect a business by virally dampening the reputation on a product or company. Praise of a product or company can direct new customers and increase profits through “social network communication.”
Businesses have implemented technology teams to track user comments on products. According to Microsoft Dynamics® CRM (2009), "[there are technical tools out there to analyze, track, rate and increase brand awareness.]” (CRM and Social Networking: Engaging the Social Customer, para. 13). This will affect a business’s marketing strategy. This method of advertising forces companies to research new ways to attract new customers and maintain older customer bases. Additionally, organizations will have to equip themselves with a CRM system to collect data as the popularity grows of networking sites and people move away from TV to the internet.
As technology has improved, social networks have moved over to a newer platform called Web 2.0. This is a second-generation service, which is online on the World Wide Web invented by (http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/berners-lee.html)Tim Berners-Lee in 1989-1991. This application gives the end user the capability to use desktop applications opposed stationary WebPages. This created the capabilities for users to create real-time blogs or informational posts. Companies have created online teams that track this type of information. The information from the analytics of a company profile is than documented and data is gathered and processed for use for product improvements or ad placements. Idea Analytics help companies track and reach target markets depending on profile criteria’s. This has proven to be a nifty way to target audiences that may have associated