Social Networking Sites: Marketing for the Future

Unless you've been under a rock for the past five years, you've probably heard about social networking sites ad nauseam. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Friendster, LinkedIn, and countless others have become not only the most popular, universal youth movement in years, but also one of the most profitable, with Facebook alone taking in approximately $300 million in 2008 alone. That's an especially impressive number once you realize that the site was created by Mark Zuckerberg in his Harvard dorm room in 2004. It's only been around for five years, and it has approximately 130 million users worldwide.

As a business owner, you can see that this is the wave of the future. Facebook and similar sites provide a ready-made marketing pool who are already connected to a system that will allow you cheap and effective marketing. In many ways, social networking sites are the culmination of the dream of the Internet as an international forum that allows people to truly interact on a person-to-person level across thousands of miles, virtually instantaneously. The goal of the marketer, then, is to take advantage of this ability.

Facebook allows paid advertisements which are targeted based on people's individual preferences. Additionally, it allows you to create fan pages which advertise your goods and products, which people can join. Facebook will alert people who join this group to new developments you post. It is an extension of viral marketing, allowing you to take advantage of existing social connections.

This is just the start, though. The sky is truly the limit for the business which knows how to actively advertise itself in this brave new world of social interaction. To the ambitious and intelligent, social networking sites could be the next television.

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For more information about how to effectively grow and market your company, contact the Austin merger and acquisition lawyer of Slater, Kennon & Jameson, LLP, by calling 512-472-2431 today.