flickr photo By fredcavazza
Social media can be used for a lot more than just finding out which one of your friends are dating and who had what for dinner – it can also be used as a form of free advertising. You might have already seen something like this before – companies advertising their internet service or even the big name groups like Toyota or Sony with their own Facebook pages where they post announcements and event details.
Why would all these major corporations turn to social media when they all have a firm footing in television advertising? Well, because you aren’t watching anymore, are you? Or rather, you aren’t watching quite as much as you used to. It’s no secret that we all spend more time on the internet, in some form or another, than we do in front of the television. We spend countless hours on our smartphones and what we are doing more than listening to music and booking flights is checking our social networking sites.
Sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are just a handful of social sites where relative nobodies have started up their own businesses. It’s the ease of use combined with the low cost (in most cases, it’s free) and the overall exposure (advertising). Big businesses and budding entrepreneurs alike can find an outlet to advertise their services and products easily and with no real, major investment (other than, maybe, a couple minutes).
There are also specialized sites that now make it easier for people to share and distribute anything from music to handmade goods and so much more – all operating within the simple interface of the tried and true social media sites like Facebook and MySpace. So the next time you go online trying to socialize, you might also want to see how social media can work for you in terms of business and advertising. You never know – social media could open the way to all sorts of career opportunities.
