Advertising through Social Media Networks: Let’s Catch up with the Internet Audience.

Abstract

Advertisers are always looking out for new ways of advertising to push their products and services in the markets. Advertising is one such activity that thrives on newness of presentation techniques and uniqueness of saleable ideas. Advertising industry, in general, claims to be ever changing, innovative, creative and technology driven in its approach. The Internet has added a new dimension to the existing media of advertising by opening up the world of social media networks and its millions of users. There is so much buzz about social media in today's world. From Facebook to MySpace to Orkut, and our very own desi versions such as Ibibo, Yaari and Minglebox, suddenly all Internet users seem like one big family. The Internet world is vibrant and the ultimate transformation that is taking place is within business landscape, worldwide where companies are beginning to leverage informal social networks to engage people, mollify customers, strengthen their brands and even hire people. The paper manly talks about the social media as strong advertising component, how does it work, what are the genres it offers, the marketing potential of social media, and some of the success stories from Indian markets. It further explores that the large number base of users would make social media an easy, favourable and cost-efficient choice of advertisers in the days to come. Although many companies are experimenting with the medium through Facebook, Orkut, You Tube and other applications, a lot needs to be done to achieve significant results