Before the advent of media and advertisements, people were
buying products and services through word of mouth of their friends and family.
It is human nature to be curious about other people’s experience and reviews
about product or service. For example, people would ask their friends and
family about a doctor before seeing him/her for treatment. Then came an era
when people started learning about more options through televised and printed
advertisements. They were still asking their friends and families for their
experience but the amount of information they would receive was very little because
they knew limited number of people and not all of them had experience with
every product and service.
Same way, companies were getting limited amount of
information about their customers likes, dislikes, needs and wants. Companies
would get very limited amount of information through surveys and many times the
information they would receive was biased because of the bias in survey design
or the population sample. Most of the times the information was not real time
and it would take months or years before companies would identify a pattern and
make adjustment in their products or services.
With the advent of Internet and social media, people are
learning not only about their friends’ and families’ experience but also about
the experience of community, region and people around the world. Consumers
trust other consumers’ experiences and reviews more than a speech from sales person
or model in advertisement. Social media has given consumers freedom and
platform to put their thoughts and experiences in front of the world. It also works
in favor of companies because comments put by customers does marketing for
their products. Sometimes user reviews
and comments also work as survey and hence learning for companies. According
to one statistic, the number of users on facebook is third largest after the
population of India and China. No advertisement platform can reach such a huge
consumer base through traditional way of marketing
Social media has not only become a great platform for marketing
commercial products but also for talent marketing. More and more companies and
recruiters are searching talents and posting jobs on websites like Linkedin. 97%
of all HR and recruiters use Linkedin in their recruiting efforts. 77% of all
job openings are posted on Linkedin. Social media is changing the method of
applying for a job by making companies visit applicant profile rather than
applicants posting their resume to company website.
Social media like blogging and twitter has changed the field
of journalism. Blogs and tweets have provided platform for young and less
experienced journalists to post their articles and throughts. Overall, social
media has created advantage for both consumers and marketers by introducing
freedom and transparency to the process.
Sources:
http://theundercoverrecruiter.com/infographic-linkedin-user-statistics-network-profiles-groups-applications/
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