Red social

Impact of advertising on social networking sites.
International Business Management with Marketing
Business Research Methods
Word count:1969
Maria Victoria Rodriguez García
H00024444

Introduction

Social media embrace communication possible throughout all of the forms of social communities online. It includes forum, virtual words, social news organizations, social opinion sharingsites, and social networks. According to Tracy L.Tuten (2008), “social networks are built around site platforms that enable members to develop and identify profiles, interact with other members, and participate in various site activities”.
Marketing week (2008) would support Tracy L. Tuten (2008) notions giving also some examples.It describes the social web as the online place where people with acommon interest can gather to share thoughts, comments, and opinions. It includes social networks such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln and hundreds more.

The time spent on social networks is rising. In August 2010, visitors to Facebook spent an average of 5 hours and 47 minutes on the site, according to the UK Online Measurement company and Nielsen.
Most advertisers consider social mediaas a uniquely promising channel in which to build brand awareness, promote goods and services, get customer feedback and encourage long-term interaction.

As stated by eMarketer, social-network advertising got renewed attention in 2010. The US´s gradual economic recovery, combined with marketers´s incessant focus on reaching customers in social media, led companies to make big increases insocial network advertising spending in the first half of 2010.

With just a few strokes of the brush it seems that social network marketing is becoming of particular interest for marketers. This paper comprises a literature review outlining the current issues and debates related to the effectiveness and impact of advertising on social networks as well as the resistances and obtacles which hold thedevelopment of this marketing vehicle.

Effectiveness of Advertising on Social networking sites

Research shows that social networks are an increasingly powerful force in mediated communication. These social networks can not only live from photos, conversations or users, the incomes of these platforms come also from advertising (Emilio Márquez, 2010).

Goldsborough (2009) examined severalmedia trends that the JWT advertising agency reported in its forecast. One of the conclusions is the predicted decline of e-mail usage, which JTW attributes to younger people´s preference for text messaging and communication through social networks. In addition, the agency cites the increasing number of social networking sites, introduction of professional social networking sites such as Linkedln,and increase in micro-blogging using programs such as Twitter.

The evolution of social networks allows for personalized interactions between advertisers and consumers. Social networks were first adopted by teenagers but soon a growing population of 25 to 34 years old and salaried profesionals started to use them, which demostrates the applicability of social networks to everyday life (Kim2008).

A strong benefit of this promotional technique is the exange of word-of-mouth messages by creating a virtual community for consumers to interact with one another (Goldenburg, Libai, and Muller 2001).
It is generally agreed that marketers have a great opportunity to use this eWOM to their advantage to rise the persuasiveness of their messages and reach more people.

In order to understandthe effectiveness of the phenomenon of eWOM, Trusov, Bucklin, and Pauwels (2009) compared it with traditional marketing when examining the efforts to increase the number of users on a social networking site. Overal they found out that eWOM is more effective, whith larger and longer effects than traditional marketing.

Liand, Lai and Ku (2006) add a new factor which makes advertising on social...