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"The power of that is that you now have democratization of media. You have anyone able to contribute to it. It doesn't require you to buy a television station to now create new media. You just need to have access to the Internet," Rand explains.
Social Media is Simply Integrated With Our Daily Routine
With the uprise of smart phones and other smart devices, people are certainly surfing the Internet and social media more often throughout the day. The idea of using social media as a marketing tactic is coming into play because it's an effective way to reach users who are already participating in social media browsing and interacting each day.
Rand brings up an interesting point about interruption. Today's society is so much more rushed than the past and people want to focus on what they need and want to do without distraction. Social media marketing is a way to get through to people without having to hinder people from accomplishing their goals for the day.
College Campuses Are Seeing an Increase in Product Promotion Through Social Media
In order to promote a specific brand to an audience it makes sense to go to where the consumer is. For most college-aged students, it's social media. According to Rand, college students are spending more time on social media than other age groups and it's where they go to for most of their information.
Handing out flyers and using other methods such as television advertising tend to get lost, especially on college campuses because people just get used to ignoring them.
"We know for a fact from a lot of surveys and a lot of studies that people spend a lot of their time on Facebook. Having that content available there makes it more readily available to them," Rand says. He mentioned the new idea known as "sponsored marketing" which is when content is put up that may be relevant to something else that the user is looking at or interested in such as a brand of clothing or specific job searches.
"That kind of content does extraordinarily well on social media," Rand says.
Some Companies Have Better Success With Social Media Than Others
There are certain companies that perform exceptionally well on social media and are able to reach their target audiences more successfully than others.
For example, there is a phone called the Jitterbug that has a few buttons and is meant for senior citizens. "It's not something you're going to target at social media very well. On the other hand, cool, hip, fashionable brands that you want kids to adopt or even teenagers or college-aged students, that's something that you might target on social media," Rand explains.
Pinterest is not necessarily the most prominent form of social media used for marketing, but the platform works extremely well for Nordstrom. Social media marketing is a strong tactic as long as companies put the time and effort into determining which platforms work best for their products.
Electronic marketing, and specifically marketing via social media, is a powerful progression in the marketing world and will continue to expand in coming years.
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