social media as an advertising medium

Is facebook and other social media suitable advertising measures for companies today?

Background
Over the past few years our economy has not fared so well. Businesses had to devise plans to keep customers and attract new customers, whichever way possible. Companies had to come up with better ways of advertising, and by keeping up with the global trends, they realized that technology has evolved so much that many people spend most of the time at a computer or are on their cellphones. The companies resorted to advertising with famous social medias such a facebook. However, what is cause for concern for these companies is the fact that they do not know how to advertise without being intrusive, or breaking privacy rules.
According to IDC 3 in 5 individuals actually clicked on the advert while using facebook , and less than 11 percent actually purchased the items advertised on facebook. Developing new customers strategies through social media is futile.
There are many factors that influence the customers mind such as their attitude. consumers attitude towards a product may influence their comments on facebook pages or groups a company puts up. . For example, attitude toward the website is a good indicator of consumers' reception of the site's content. That is, consumers are more likely to rely on the website's content as a source of information when they have favourable attitudes toward the site (Poh and Adam 2002). An individual’s attitude towards facebook for example is positive which leads to the individuals creation and consumption of the information that she is provided with for example if the consumer has a positive attitude she/he would allow them to join product groups and spread the word about the product or even purchase the product. Hence it is vital for companies to analyse facebook users attitudes toward social media.

Problem statement.
McConnell believes that advertising on facebook is a waste of time, because not everybody cares what their friends are buying, and not everybody cares on passing the message on to everybody. Microsoft does not support the assessment of McConnell; they state that according to their stats more that thirty-eight million individuals log in facebook every month. From this information we assume that there are numerous occasions where individuals can exchange their preferences, and from this companies can decipher who to target.

Research objective
This research is to find out if it advisable for companies to keep on advertising on social media pages such as facebook. We want to find out if the company is losing money on advertising on the internet or are they actually gaining. We also like to see to what extent does attitude influence the customers decision in sharing information.

Sampling and Data Collection Procedure
We can use sampling and data collection to gather information. From information gathered by Castelyn,Mottart and Rutten , they have already did research showing that online social media is a good marketing strategy and research to find consumers. Scholars with a facebook account can be asked about fill out a survey via email to and ask the individuals to pass the email to the rest of their facebook buddies. And from this we can see if people do forward information and how many take the initiative to actually read and acknowledge what is sent.

Attitudes can be tested by using a semantical system for attitudinal responses for example good and bad, yes and no.we can have close ended questions to specific adverts fro example an advert about chocolate pops out , the question could be, this advert is ; 1-informative 2-unnecessary 3-fun. Things like these should be drawn up and executed in order to analyse the customer needs and attitudes. If we know what they want , companies wouldn’t pay unnecessary money in adverts that are neglected.

Refrences
Calne, Donald B. (1999). Within Reason: Rationality and Human Behavior. New York, Pantheon Books. ISBN 978-0-375-40351-4.
Mary McConnell (2001) Functional behavioral assessment. Denver: Love Publishing Co.
. Poh, D. M. H. and Adam, S. 2002, 'An Exploratory Investigation of Attitude Toward the Website and the Advertising Hierarchy of Effects', pp. 620-631.