Page 47 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

FIGURE 2-1:
Blogs on
The New York
Times website.

» Communication: The Internet continues to be a core communication
medium for most people. With the advent of social media, this communica-
tion takes place within social networks versus personal websites or via email
and instant messenger programs. Microcommunication technologies such as
Twitter, which let you communicate in short bursts of information, are very
popular. The medium allows consumers to communicate with one another in
new, dynamic ways, whether it be through microblogging, leaving notes on
friends’ Facebook profiles, commenting on personal blogs, or instant messag-
ing from within websites. In fact, the explosive growth of WhatsApp and its
subsequent purchase by Facebook for $19 billion dollars is testament to this
trend around microcommunication on a huge scale. When consumers are
communicating with each other, they’re less receptive to marketing cam-
paigns unless the campaigns incorporate their communications with their
peers in a permissible fashion. This is why social media marketing campaigns
that incorporate groups of people are so important. The trickiness of market-
ing in this context is also why at this point, WhatsApp has no intention of
incorporating advertising into its mobile app. That could change in the future,
of course.

CHAPTER 2 Discovering Your SMM Competitors 31