Importance of Social Networks for Businesses

Introduction:
Companies after ever increasing the speed of utilization of internet and social networks by individuals decided to use social networks to become more and more popular in terms of their banding strategies, positioning, marketing activities, customers services and feedbacks, implementation of e-CRM and alike. People use social networks in order to communicate, share their ideas, and use the flow of information and other means of publishing information about themselves.

Although since 1990s, utilization of internet, many social networks and internet tools had emerged, it was not popular. Recently, through the development of social network in friendly atmosphere and with less complexity in terms of functioning for individuals, this service (social network service) has become part of people’s lives.

In terms of clarification of analysis on customer satisfaction, customer retention, and customer relationship management and customer feedbacks, social networks play a pivotal role. As a result companies have tried to utilize Social network services in order to better serve customers and obtain other various objectives. Most companies recognized that social network sites (SNSs) like Napster, Facebook, and Twitter and so on are the best places to them in order to highlight their brand image through which they can increase their market share, and sustainability.

What is a Social Network?
It is considered as a platform through which social relations will be built among people and information sharing will be facilitated. Through social networks sites personal information and relationships can be shared and users can stay in touch.

Most of SNSs provide a personal page for posting, ability to search for friends and other issues like updating profile and personal data and have the ability to restrict and/or conceal the mentioned information by page owner from the eyes of public or specific people.

These Online facilities (SNSs) have improved the movements of individuals on online tasks, especially in the mentioned social networks for the purpose of maintaining friendships regardless of distance (geographical limitation). Not only that but also it enables people to find better jobs and partners.

Regarding the acceptance of these sites by people, companies have become interested to get involved in this process through which they can sell their products and services and better serve customer ‘s needs and wants and through analysis of consumer buying patterns and their feedbacks they can fine tune their decision making process as well as their strategies.

Below information reveals the fact that how rapidly number of social networks increase since 1997.

1997: SixDegrees.com

1998: —

1999: Asian Avenue, Live Journal, Black Planet

2000: LunarStorm (SNS relaunch), Migente

2001: Cyworld, Ryze

2002: Fotolog, Friendster, SkyBlog

2003: CouchSurfing, LinkedIn, MySpace, HI5, Tribe.net,

2004: Orkut, Dogster, Flicker, Facebook (Harward only), Mixi, Piczo, Hyves, Catster

2005: YouTube, Zanga, Yahoo.360, Facebook (Highschool networks), Bebo, Ning, Asian Avenue & BlackPlanet (relaunched)

2006 till now: QQ, Windows Live Space, Facebook (Corporate Networks), Twitter, MyChurch, and then Facebook (Everyone)

Many companies during previous decade as a result of increasing the use of these networks have decided to penetrate into SNSs in order to find the relevant information of people, elicit information and analyze them in order to make appropriate decision based on market moves; not only in terms of customers but also in terms of competitors and rules and regulations. They aim at finding useful information in order to do external (Scanning, monitoring, forecasting, assessing), and industry analysis (5 forces of porter) as well as competitor analysis.

Usefulness of Social Networks:

Considering SNSs as a marketing tool, they help companies to interact with customers and create online communities and pages,

Updating latest activity of companies, advertisements and providing customers with applications necessary or useful in order to increase the traffic of their page, blog or community,

Facilitate the process of being aware of the company, and promote ideas, products and services,

Skipping search engine optimizations rankings,

It helps to get feedback from customers and to better implement the concept o electronic customer relationship management (e-CRM) and to classify valuable customers in order to serve them with value creating activities,

Focus on market, global reach, limitless number of customers who can be served, to better segment the market and customers,

Enables different model of advertising such word of mouth, suggestions for specific group or niche and so on.

Fastest way to get information and finding opportunities,
Social Networking Sites and E-commerce Businesses:
Although other methods of communication exist, they are to some extent different comparing to SNSs. Social network is a place in which individuals become fan of a page, they see each other and based on their mutual interest they become capable of interacting with each other and make a community on their own.

The mentioned issue is the result of shifting the power through utilization of SNSs from company to consumers. More social networks get popular, the tougher is the implementation of business based on traditional procedures therefore; companies must consider market moves in this case. Besides, by digging up the information available on these networks identification of valuable customers would be easier and a business can serve its valuable customers much better in this regard.

Regarding the accessibility of individuals to internet, companies moved from Brick and Mortar to Click and Mortar or to virtual one which resulted in operational efficiency improvement as well as generating revenue.

As companies are moving toward the above mentioned issue (adaptation of EC), they utilize several strategies to achieve success. They used various strategies in business and corporate level to reduce costs of transaction, reducing delivery time, to better serve the customers and to better manage them, and to better inform them about the current activities performing by the business especially for service companies. Accordingly, due to massive passion of individuals in case of using social networks like Facebook, twitter and so on, companies decided to reduce the gap between themselves and consumers by following consumers passion therefore, they started to make use of social networks and possibly other web 2.0 applications on extend their businesses.

In this era, almost all companies have websites and among them, some have social network to better communicate with customers which is linked to a website by the use of social plugins. Consequently, it is highly suggested to businesses that if they are not being first mover in Social networks, at least do never miss the chance of being late mover.

Impact of Social Networks on Marketing:
As it is mentioned above, individuals will be attracted to join famous social networks in order to create a profile and connect with existing members or pages or businesses. Once a profile created, users can interact with each other; send invitation for others to join. By the time a link shaped, communication to a friend, group members become easy because users tend to organize themselves by affinity, life stage, and psychographics which would be an excellent chance for targeted marketing.

Impact of Social Networks on Purchase Intention:
Through the use of social network as mentioned before members share their ideas, they may talk about different thing even including the recent product they bought or a particular type of service given to them or offered by a company. Many people around the world believe in talking to other consumers in order to get the required information before purchasing for a good or service (a matter of trust factor-word of mouth). And nowadays consumers due to availability of information on the internet they prefer to search online and when going online they more like to go to social networks in order to find more information from other customers, and what have been shared on social network pages of a particular company about certain type of good or service.

Can You Make Money With Social Networks?

Social Networks gather people with common interests and many people enjoy being part of a large network of friends and future friends. Social networks actively promote people to join so that they can increase their clout with online advertisers. These Social Networks make large amounts of money from the advertisers that want to get their products and services in front of all of these people.

This is why most Social Networks provide splendid high tech features such as discussion groups, video email, online social games, photo albums, contests, and many more exciting things to come. They create a virtual mall of fun things to do so people will not only visit but stay for long periods of time. The longer a person stays on a website, the more opportunity there is for the advertisers to place their ad in front of more people. This is referred to as the “Stickiness” of a website.

But there are other good reasons for people to use social networks as well. Networking is a way for business people to meet prospective clients, partners, and customers in a friendly social way and this has always proven to be lucrative. This is similar to the reason why many companies provide tee times for their employees who are entertaining clients – it is a way to personalize a meeting during a friendly round of golf. Thus if you have a business, being socially active can make you money.

These attributes of social networking have been very successful in recent times for increasing the number of people gathering on these social network sites. However, competition in this ‘niche’ is growing and will continue to grow. A new niche is needed.

Most business must spend money not only to start up but also to grow the number of customers they have. Social Networks do advertise in their infancy to gain members and this usually puts them further in the “red” until they can persuade enough people to join for companies seeking good advertising opportunities to pay them for the ad space. Many companies of all types commonly must spend upwards of 70% of their revenue to maintain and grow their business. If this money is paid to advertising agencies, it only benefits a limited number of people.

Enter the “monetized” social network. Since most businesses in the world are very happy if they can make a 30% profit, why not pass 70% of the advertising revenue back to the members of the social network? Base the amount of revenue each member receives on the amount of members they bring into the membership and you have a viral team of social net-workers who are being paid to increase the number of people in the network. Instead of paying for advertisements to get people to come to their website, the members become the advertisers and are compensated for their efforts. Also, since the advertisers who would pay this social networking site for hosting their ads is willing to pay the going rate for internet advertising, both the 70% share being passed back to the members and the 30% profit for the social networking site owners grows proportionally with the growth of the membership. If you can find a social network like this, wouldn’t you rather be a member there instead of Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace who keep all the profits for themselves and take advantage of the very lucrative services their members provide them?

The business model of this monetized social network could be structured to reward those who work the hardest to bring new people to the website. After all, this is how money is made on the internet. So imagine if you developed a method to track both how much each member views the advertisements on the website and how many people they have invited who join the network, how this could provide the basis of a commission structure that would be fair and equitable.

Consider a commission structure in a simple database that tracks who invites who and places the new people in a structure under the person who invited them. Assume that membership at this social network is free. Now imagine a common multiplication of people due to all being rewarded for bringing new people. Say Joe invites 10 of his friends to join and provides them with a link. These 10 friends join because they like Joe and they have common interests together. Each of these 10 friends have 10 friends who want to join them also. Now there are 100 people under Joe and Joe is being rewarded a portion of the advertising revenue for 100 people and he only invited 10 of them. Of course, those 100 people could have 10 friends each that they invite and the numbers of people now under Joe are 1000 and this continues. Joe only invited 10 but there is nothing to stop him from inviting far more and he continues to be rewarded for bringing new people to the website. This is the real power of social networking which will dominate the industry very soon.

Each member is paid based on the amount of time they spend on the social networking site doing the things we all do such as clicking advertisements (just window shopping), doing searches, checking our email, playing games, interacting with our friends, and making new friends. The social network could also provide volume discounts to its members through their advertisers so the members can save money on the products they buy. Thus each member shares revenue in one case by the time they spend accessing the website. The other stream of income is from a commission a member gets for bringing the new people onto the site..

You can do the math. For instance, just use 5% of the total revenue generated by Joe’s 10 (plus) people he invited himself, and use 2% of everyone they invited down to 6 levels below Joe. Using the example, if Joe’s group expanded to 6 levels, there may be 1 million people under Joe. Considering that there are over 1.7 Billion people using the internet and this number is increasing every day, how hard is that to believe?

Also, to get a group of more committed people to get involved, you offer a premium level membership to some. This is a normal business method to employ leaders who can help manage and promote the groups who will come. But instead of being free, you charge $200 USD so that you only allow people who can commit to an idea and make a sound decision to join in that level. Right at first, you will need many of these types of people but once they have established themselves, you would close this level of membership until the size of the groups demanded more leadership or training. So you compensate these special premium members with say, 20% of their directly sponsored member’s revenue and 6% of of the revenue generated by the people they sponsor down to 6 levels.

How Social Networking Can Help You Get a Job

Social networking, while a huge component of life, is still a new environment in the grand scheme of things. The growth potential of each of these communities is incredible and that accounts for the hundreds of millions of dollars dumped into each of these social networking companies by investors year after year. However there is great debate over how social networking truly can be capitalized on other than as a community of like minded people.

One area though that social networking has quickly caught on is the area of recruiting. It did not take people, the social networking sites, employers or human resources departments long to realize that the same tools that job seekers had been using for years could be used by them to get information about prospective employees. In fact there has been no shortage of news stories on this phenomenon. What we want to take a look at today is how you as a job seeker can use this social networking to help you position yourself correctly so that prospective employers can find out what they need to about you. In doing this we will also look at how you can irrevocable hurt yourself in the search for a job through social networking.

Finally, we will delve into the jobs that are helped and hurt the most by this glut of information available through the different networks. Now, I want to go on record that I in no way believe that a person should have to censor themselves in any way. However, what we are looking at here is how you can position yourself for employers on the internet therefore we will be talking about things people should and shouldn’t do. If you as an individual wish to go forward with whatever, realize the greatest asset of social networking and the internet is that you can be who you want and present yourself the way you wish. Just realize with that right is the responsibilities and consequences that come with the decisions that each individual makes. With that in mind let us dig deeper into how you can start to improve your chances of getting that job you applied for with the help of your social networking network.

When I first started posting on the internet the free information this blog provides about personal branding and social networking I was questioned constantly about how it can affect and assist in finding and keeping a job but I wanted to research the topic more before I wrote an article on it. I wanted to know what employers were looking at online when scouting individual employees. This will help us when it comes to looking at how to position your network to be as effective as possible in helping you with your job search. The first place I went to was an article from Linda Roeder written on June 16th of this year.

This article states without a shadow of a doubt that companies are in a large way using social networking and the percentages are extremely high. Her numbers come from a poll released by Jumpstart Media, a company started by Digital Brand Expressions which is a search marketing consulting firm that helps Fortune 1000 companies with their digital branding. In the poll released June 9th of this year 75% of the hiring managers surveyed utilized LinkedIn, they stated that they used Facebook and 26% of them responded that they use Twitter. When further asked why, the managers responded that they were looking for the “professionalism of the person beyond the resume”.

This means to me that employers are depending on social networking to get a closer look at the person behind the professional protection often provided by a resume and cover letter. This could mean looking at the groups you belong to, the blogs you have RSS feeding into your profiles, how you are at presenting yourself through written, verbal or visual communication depending on how much multimedia is integrated into your site and simply put your pictures that are publicly available. This means that you truly want to paint a picture of professionalism, especially on LinkedIn, but also on Facebook and now on Twitter as well.

The question I get asked all the time is “How do I do this?” There are countless ways of doing this, but none of them are “easy” and all of them take diligence and work on your part to maintain. The first is to take a look at everything you have posted in each of your accounts and make sure that they are helpful to you professionally. This might mean taking some pictures down and storing them on your hard drive and backing them up in a different way. This could mean rewriting the bio that you have on your social networking accounts. It might mean changing the articles that you share with people through the mediums such as Twitter and of course it could mean not necessarily always giving your true emotions on your updates. All of these items help paint a picture of you as the individual and no matter what is in the cover letter or the resume, the information that is found in an account that is seen as “totally personal” will always be given more weight in an individual’s mind as “the true you”.

The next thing that a person will want to do after they have cleansed the accounts they have is frequently update the social networking and keep it active. The reason for this is not just so a company sees that you are a “dedicated and hard working” individual, but this also helps increase the relevancy of the sights that you have altered, and that will help you in the search engines. If this sounds daunting, there are companies and individuals that help people put together plans that can accomplish these goals and in some cases even help them maintain the accounts they have put together. This is what I do for a living when I am not writing and updating my blogs and accounts and many of my mentors and teachers are also involved in this area as well. Now hopefully you are not exhausted yet because this just the first steps in how you can use social networking to help you in a job search, and this is the most reactionary of all. In most cases this is preemptive work that you have done to make sure you are ready.

The next thing we have to look for in this area is how you can make what is called an irrevocably or almost unchangeable decision that can hurt you when it comes to your social networks. These areas are touched on in an article by Linda Roeder entitled “Your Website Can Affect Other Parts of Your Life” in this article she gives a list of items that can affect and in that list is losing your job and trouble with the law or media. In both of these cases you can do something that could make getting that job harder or in some cases impossible. The first one and this is more a problem with the current youth, is the posting of pictures of people at parties in compromising positions or “having too much fun”.

In some cases this is not done by the person themselves but by a third party that was taking pictures with a cell phone or digital camera and then posts the pictures to show how great a party or get together it is. Now with the tagging feature in Facebook and other great features that allow people to point out exactly who you are, you can end up with a not so great searchable image on Google or attached to your account when some searches for you when you apply for that next position. Another thing that can happen is that people post their information online and update it frequently enough creating plenty of relevance with the name then someone goes to Google your name and the first link that comes up is your Facebook or LinkedIn account. That is fine because you have managed that well and you are showing the right picture, but the next link down is a public records link of a problem you had with the law.

This problem could have been not a big deal but was put on the public record. Now there is your future employer looking right at it. Remember that companies rarely go directly to a social networking site and type in your name. They go to Google or a search engine and type in your name; so just managing one account if you have multiple is probably not going to work. The best way to get a picture of this is Google the name you use on your job applications and resumes and see what comes up, don’t just look at the links check the images as well. I draw your attention to news stories like Tiffany Shepherd and Michael Phelps. Yet, it is not always necessary to find a picture for social networking to have a completely horrid networking experience. This can be seen in many cases such as Kimberly Swann, 16, of Clacton fired because she posted her job was “boring” in her status update on Facebook or here in the United States of Dan Leone who used to work with the Philadelphia Eagles who wrote on his wall that the Eagles were “…retarded” and lost his job. So you can see now that there are things that you need to avoid at all costs so that you can keep your job or be in a position to get that job by not making one of these vital errors.

Now that you are armed with what companies are looking for and the preemptive steps you can take to make sure that you are positioned right for the job, and you have examples of the irrevocable and big no-no’s of the social networking world when it comes to getting or keeping your job, we are ready to touch on the final area and that is the proactive things you can do to help you achieve the position you desire. There are 10 proactive steps that you can take and we are going to give a short description of how to go about accomplishing each one.

1. Start learning more about the industry you wish to end up in. You can do this by finding articles and blog information. Looking at the companies in the field and reading about what they do and what they have in common. Look for the competitive advantages. This will allow you to be better informed with how your resume matches up to the positions you will be applying for.

2. Decide a clear career path. This is different than looking for a job. You need to look at not only where you are now, but where you want to be 3 years and even 5 years from now. Look at what the “expected” career path is in the industry you are interested in.

3. Update your resume regularly. This is not something that needs to be done daily or even monthly, but I would look at it at least quarterly and make sure that you are updating numbers in your current position. If you are out of a job, keep focused on the education, and remember you can never know too much about what you want to do. So if you are continuing to educate yourself let it be known.

4. Actively search out people who share the same interests as you. Don’t just sit back and say well if I cast a big enough net out there I am destined to get something. Be targeted toward the goal you have and get to know people out there in the industry. See what you have in common and find ways to talk with them.

5. Get involved with groups that allow you to show your knowledge. It does no good to be the smartest man in the world and sit at home all day and never do anything. You must share your knowledge with people. Groups on these social networking sites allow you to do that. Put questions out there to help extend your knowledge and of course when you see a question you have a solid answer for don’t hesitate to provide that answer.

6. Find recruiters and staffers that are specific to that industry. You might not be looking for a position that is staffed out by that exact firm or person, but you never know who they know. So make sure that you are not closing doors just because that individual might not be exactly the right one.

7. Be active in a positive way on the networks. This means don’t spam everybody all the time, but if you truly have something to share, put it out there and let people know about it. If it is truly topical and of good quality it will be recognized. If the content is consistently solid you might not have to work as long to get the position you desire.

8. Be specific when asked “What you are looking for”. I can’t begin to stress this enough. Never be modest in this answer by shrugging it off with something like, “well anything I am qualified for”. This shows a level of indecision and that can hurt you in the long run. Someone who shows they know what they want comes across as confident and organized.

9. Don’t be afraid to ask your entire network to help you in this quest. Simply put if you are not willing to let the people that care about you, be there for you, why are they there. This is a daunting task especially now in this economy where people are struggling to make ends meet and each person has more than one problem. It is easy to feel like you are piling on, but once again you never know who those people know and who can help you. Never make the assumption that “If they knew someone they would not be in this boat”.

10. Make looking for your career your job until you find your career. There is an old saying that “a house divided falls”. Well a person divided too much fails. So if you are keeping all the bills and parts of life in order as well as trying to make sure that you are looking for a position and then on top of that just dangling your feet in another area you will never make it. You must make a commitment and when you make that commitment stay with it.

With these ten steps, the reactive parts from above and avoiding the mistakes that can shut you down, you have a good starting point for making social networking a positive force in you finding the career you always wanted. This is not a complete guide in that there are other things that you can do that are outside social networking and those should not be forgotten nor will they be ignored. Right now however, let us take one step at a time and making sure that what you have online is in order can be a huge step in putting things in the right direction.

We started this paper and ended this paper looking at how social media can help you find a job. We looked at the ways to clean up the existing media you have and what the companies are looking for when they go online to see your social networking sites. We have touched on the things that can truly shut down a search or a career online before you even start and gave multiple examples of what those were, who they happened to and the articles so you can read about the stories and opinions. Finally we looked at the proactive steps that you can take to make sure that you are doing what needs to be done to be ready for the career you have chosen, the interviews that will come and the discussions you must and will have. We concentrated online specifically here because we wanted it to be manageable and not something so cumbersome that someone starting the process would feel they could ever finish.

The Most Popular Social Networks and Who Is On Them

How much time do you spend online?

According to a time use survey compiled by comScore Media Metric, the average American spends 33.9 hours on the Internet every week. Depending on age and other demographics, this number can double! And for those lucky individuals whose occupations rely primarily on computers: the Internet commands their lives and they are never not connected.

Computers have drastically changed the technological landscape. The Internet has facilitated efficiency in a number of offline processes. We use the web to communicate with our family, friends and business acquaintances in real-time chats. Books and other multimedia are available for online viewing and instant download. We can even shop for gifts online – often offered at a deeper discount than in brick-and-mortar stores! The Internet has revolutionized the way that we live, as we now spend one-sixth of our lives in the digital world.

Exhibit 1: 100 Most-Visited Websites by category, according to Google Ad Planner

Where are we actually spending our time online?

Google has compiled a list of the 100 most-visited websites in the United States. (Being the modest company that they are, Google has chosen to omit their website and statistics from the study.) These 100 websites are sorted into six categories: social networking, search engines, shopping, entertainment, business and software.

The Internet can deliver information instantaneously, so naturally search engines and other information-related websites comprise the most popular category – sites ranging from web portals, such as Yahoo! and Bing, to encyclopedias and other how-to pages, such as Wikipedia and eHow. Closely tailing search engines are online shopping and other e-commerce websites – pages such as Amazon, eBay and Walmart – followed, in descending order, by the categories Entertainment, Social Networking, Business and Software.

Social networks are defined as any and all websites that are personal communities, professional networks, blogs, dating communities, deal of the day websites and other content sharing sites. It is significant that social media occupy the fourth largest category, as these websites have only gained popularity within the past few years. In fact, two of the top three websites in America are “social” sites. The number one site, Facebook, is the largest social network in the world with over 800 million loyal users. YouTube trails behind this social giant as the second most popular social network, and the third most popular website in the US.

Which social sites are Americans frequenting the most?

Americans have become fully absorbed in the social networking infrastructure. According to Nielsen, social media has engrossed 22% of our total time online. The chart, “Total Reach of Social Networks,” reveals the percentage of Americans that are logged-in to the 15 most-popular networks in the country. The most popular social network is Facebook, with a total national reach of over 67%. Close in proximity is YouTube, with 54.7% of the population viewing, sharing and commenting on videos posted by others around the globe. Other social networks are used by less than half of the population – networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn, and blogging websites such as Blogspot and WordPress.

Another sub-category of social networks has made it to the top-100. Within the past year, the deal-of-the-day industry has flourished. There are dozens of competing websites, but the two that have thus far generated the bulk of the traffic and seized the largest marketing share are Living Social and Groupon. Consumers flock to these websites for the great discounts on a variety of products, services and activities. Only 5% of the United States population is connected to these sites. However, in another year it is predicted that the reach of these sites will more than double as the popularity of these sites is accelerating at an enthusiastic rate.

Exhibit 2: Total Reach of Social Networks in the US, according to Google Ad Planner

Which Americans are on social networks?

Of the 310 million individuals in the United States, at least 210 million are actively participating in social networks. Who are these individuals? According to Google, the majority of users are women. Females are more active participants in social media than their counterparts. Women are especially more active on deal of the day social networks – where users typically register in order to receive coupons. In fact, the only social network where men have the greater presence is LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network. This may be correlated to the fact that men hold higher-level positions in the US workforce than women. Currently out of the running Fortune 500 companies, there are only 16 female CEOs (as told by USA Today). Even more shocking is that this is the greatest number of women that have ever held this position at the same time.

Exhibit 3: Social Media Usage by Gender in the US, according to Google Ad Planner

In regards to age, the correlation shows that younger individuals prefer more active social networks, whereas older individuals prefer networks where there is an emphasis on content retrieval. Senior citizens are most active on deal of the day sites, which provide coupons and other group discounts for those that chose to lead active lifestyles. On the other hand, the media of choice for younger generations appear to be networks where regular, active participation is encouraged. Teenagers and kids flock to social sharing sites such as YouTube and Photobucket, an image hosting website. For young adults, blogs and other weblog sites that facilitate comments and sharing are most popular. Overall, the group that has the largest presence on social media is adults. The majority of the users of the 15 most-visited social sites are between the ages of 35 and 54 years of age.

Exhibit 4: Social Media Usage by Age in the US, according to Google Ad Planner

How important are demographics?

The Internet and technologies that make the Internet more accessible for us have been strongly embedded into modern culture. Laptops, smart phones, tablets and mp3 players with Internet access are consumed by all age groups. Internet users flee to the web not just for information, but also to shop, communicate and consume multimedia. The increase in Internet consumption has led us to spend more time in the digital world and less time in the real world – one-sixth less time to be exact.

The media patterns of target audiences are changing. Marketers need to redevelop their marketing strategies in order to better influence target audiences and stimulate them to consume. The most successful advertisers are those that are able to reach their audiences through multiple channels. In modern America, this requires integrating an online marketing strategy.

Using the demographics of our ideal buyer persona, we can learn which websites our target audiences are frequenting. These trending websites will prove to be the best online locations to advertise to these individuals. If the ideal buyer is a 35 year old soccer mom, then research shows that it would be useful to advertise on deal of the day websites that women in this age group tend to frequent. Alternatively, if our ideal candidate is a business executive that works long hours for a prestigious law firm, LinkedIn advertisements would be the indisputable way to go.

All in all, social media shows us that demographics matter. Using factors such as age, gender and nationality we can determine an online marketing strategy that will lead to effective advertising results. More targeted marketing leads to increased sales and a healthier business.

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