Download about Social network sites Part II: Marketing through

Plan:
Introduction
Part I: All about Social network sites
1. Social Network Sites: A Definition
2. History of Social Network Sites
3. Brief history of Twitter, Myspace and Facebook
Part II: Marketing through the social
network
1. Facebook marketing
2. Marketing techniques for facebook
3. Example of a company using Facebook marketing
services
Conclusion
1 | Page
Abstract:
Social network sites (SNSs) are increasingly attracting the attention of more
and more users around the world. This academic research explains why social
network sites are so special and unique by giving some keys of their success. The
purpose of this research is to provide a conceptual and an historical context for social
network sites, and get an idea about how the marketing department works in these
sites. We begin by defining what is a social network site and then present the
historical development of SNSs, after that we shall speak about marketing through
SNSs. We conclude with an example of a company using Facebook marketing
services.
2 | Page
Introduction:
Since their introduction, social network sites (SNSs) such as MySpace,
Facebook and Twitter have attracted millions of users, some of us have integrated
these sites into their daily practices. There are hundreds of SNSs supporting a wide
range of interests and practices that individuals chose according to their needs,
expectation and what kind of persons they are seeking. One of these sites has
exceeded 500 million users and dream of a more prestigious future by innovating the
online marketing services very well. This emergent phenomenon allowed users to
keep in touch with their friends in an easy and cheap way. So what makes social
network sites unique? What is the historical development of SNSs? And how a small
company can use SNSs marketing services for it advertising strategy?
Part I: All about Social network sites
1.
Social Network Sites: A Definition:
According to Danah m. boyd 1& Nicole B. Ellison 2a social network sites is a
web-based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile
within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a
connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others
within the system.

What makes them unique?
What makes social network sites unique is not that they allow individuals to
meet strangers, but rather that they enable users to view profiles that display an
articulated list of Friends who are also users of the system. After joining an SNS, an
individual is asked to fill out forms containing a series of questions. The profile is
generated using the answers to these questions, which typically include descriptors
such as age, location, interests, and an "about me" section. Most sites also
encourage users to upload a profile photo. Some sites allow users to improve their
profiles by adding multimedia content or modifying their profile's look and feel.
2.
History of Social Network Sites:
The first social network site launched in 1997. SixDegrees.com allowed users
to create profiles, list their Friends and, surf the Friends lists. Profiles existed on most
major dating sites and many community sites. AIM and ICQ buddy lists supported
Danah m. boyd is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Information at the University of CaliforniaBerkeley and a Fellow at the Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Her research
focuses on how people negotiate mediated contexts like social network sites for sociable purposes.
1
2
Nicole B. Ellison is an assistant professor in the Department of Telecommunication,
Information Studies, and Media at Michigan State University. Her research explores issues
of self-presentation, relationship development, and identity in online environments such
as weblogs, online dating sites, and social network sites.
3 | Page
lists of Friends, although those Friends were not visible to others. Classmates.com
allowed people to affiliate with their high school or college and surf the network for
others who were also affiliated, but users could not create profiles or list Friends until
years later.
From 1997 to 2001, a number of community tools began supporting various
combinations of profiles and publicly articulated Friends. AsianAvenue, BlackPlanet,
and MiGente allowed users to create personal, professional, and dating profiles
users could identify Friends on their personal profiles without seeking approval for
those connections.
Like any brief history of a major phenomenon, ours still incomplete. In the
following paragraph we shall discuss Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook, three SNSs
that have changed the conception of SNSs and introduce a business approach to
their system.
3.
Brief history of Twitter, Myspace and Facebook:
a. Twitter:
Twitter was founded in March 2006 by Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey, and Biz
Stone. In 2006 Williams and Biz Stone co-founded Obvious Corp along with other
former Odeo employees. Twitter was created as a separate company in April 2007 by
Obvious Corp.
Since its creation in 2006, Twitter has become very popular worldwide. Its
revenue raised over US$57 million in 2009, against $35 million in 2008. Twitter is the
fastest growing free micro-blogging software that allows keeping in touch with people
by creating their own pages where they can express their interests, their life or may
be their problems.
b. Myspace:
The origin of the MySpace.com domain was a site owned by YourZ.com, Inc. It
was founded in August 2003 by Tom Anderson. Shortly after launching the site, team
member Chris DeWolfe suggested that they start a new kind of profile dedicated to
talented musicians who need help for producing their albums, Myspace take these
artists in charge and make them in contact with a potential producer. This idea
allowed to Myspace to make a large and successful community.
c. Facebook:
Facebook was launched in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg for following
Boston University students. The network was extended to other Boston
universities and all US universities few mounts later. It became Facebook.com in
August 2005 after the address was purchased for $200,000. US high schools could
sign up from September 2005, then it began to spread worldwide, reaching UK
universities the following month.
4 | Page
In September 2006, the network was extended beyond educational institutions
to anyone with a registered email address. The site remains free to join, and makes a
profit through advertising revenue.
It annual revenue was about $ 300 million in the year 2008. It has international
operations and regional headquarters around the world. Due to its wide popularity
around the world, it has a large potential for advertising. Prior to Facebook, online
advertisement consisted mostly of annoying pop ups and banners. However,
Facebook has innovated the online marketing very well by employing some exciting
strategies.
Part II- Marketing Through the social
network:
1.
Facebook Marketing
A popular website Compte.com had reported in the year 2009 that Facebook
was the most popular social networking site. Its popularity has risen mainly due to its
elegant interface and variety of applications that are provided to the customers.
There have been numerous attempts of buying Facebook by big organizations such
as Yahoo but those attempts have not materialized till now.
Most big corporations are registered with Facebook and are using it as a
platform to connect with their customers. There are numerous applications which
have been used quite effectively by them to connect with their customers. Facebook
allows creation of profile pages, discussion forums and polls etc which can be used
by these organizations to gauge the feedback of the customers for their products.
This feedback can be used to improve upon their policies, products and services.
Facebook has even started creation of customized advertisement campaigns for
different organizations. Using this, audience is presented relative advertisement to
their location, age, gender etc. This helps the individual users to get access of
advertisement of such products which might be useful to them. For example a person
living in a cold location such as Alaska would be shown advertisement of heating
solutions. Further, the female members would be presented advertisement of prom
dresses.
Such utilities have helped in the rapid popularity of Facebook. Millions of users
access Facebook daily and efforts are being put to develop effective tools to tap the
huge fan following for advertisements. The different advertisers can create groups
and promote them among the users who have related interests.
So, how can a small companies use? By using some marketing techniques
2.
Marketing Techniques for Facebook
5 | Page
You can use the following techniques when it comes to using Facebook as an
effective and low cost marketing tool that also enables you to develop the trust and
the credibility with the people who use Facebook.

Establishing a Facebook Group:
You can create a Facebook group for a product or service to enable Facebook
users to engage with the product and to interact with other people who also benefits
from the product or service. The group established can be used to promote the
product or service effectively that can reach millions of users in a low cost manner.
Through establishing a Facebook group for a product or service, you are also
enabled to connect with your market through posting engaging content like blogs,
posts, videos, and pictures that can help promote and sell the product or service to
your market.

Creating a Fan Page for a Product or Service:
Creating a fan page for a product or service can be used to gauge how many
Facebook users use a certain product or service that created that specific fan page;
this can help a lot when it comes to analyzing the market and successfully
determining the demographics of the fans of the product or service.

Utilizing Facebook Paid Space:
Using Facebook paid space is also an effective yet low cost marketing tactic
you can use to expose your product or service to the millions of users worldwide.
This can provide a great amount of daily exposure and it will easily become a lot
more popular. When it comes to finding an effective yet low cost platform that you
can use for the effective promotion of different products and services, using this
popular social platform is an effective way to reach your target market easily and to
develop the trust of the users and the product’s capability. It is important that you fully
understand how Facebook works so that you can effectively use it as an effective low
cost marketing tool, knowing more about this popular social platform will definitely
help you utilize it well for your marketing endeavors.
3.
Facebook: The Small Business Marketing Tool
Five years ago, Facebook was nothing but a thought. Today, it is not only the
most popular website on the internet, but it is also where 400 million users visit to
exchange messages, posts photos and play games. Facebook is a marketing
opportunity that you cannot pass up as a small business. Many large businesses use
Facebook as a way to market themselves, and as a small business you should be
thinking of marketing yourself on Facebook. How do you go about this? Well, it is
surprisingly easy.
1. First of all, you want to add as many friends as you can to begin this form of
small business marketing. Facebook as a limit of 5,000 friends but that offers you a
great networking opportunity. Add your friends, their friends, family and more and you
will see your friend list greatly increase.
6 | Page
2. Create a fan page for your business. This fan page is where you will put up
pictures of your business, information about it, and how people can reach you.
²3. Invite all your friends on Facebook to your fan page. This will give you
hundreds or even a couple thousand fans on your fan page.
So, now what do you do?
Now you use the fan page to its full advantage for your small business
marketing. The first thing you do is begin to put up notices on the fan page to get
people interested. These can include things like “Today only, 50 percent off!” and that
will help notify people about your sale on your website. Every time you post
something on your fan page, your customers will see it on their own Facebook
pages. It is like giving them an advertisement without them even realizing it.
Another way you can make sure that you help get customers coming to your
website to buy products is by offering special deals for your customers. So, you put
something on your fan page that says “Come to the website and use this Code:
K838LJ and get one free product with anything you buy! So, now you are giving a
special offer only to your fans that they will be able to take advantage of. If your fan
page has 10,000 fans, you are reaching as many as you would with a newspaper or
television advertisement without ever having to pay a dime, except for the cost of
your internet.
That is what makes Facebook such a great way to go about small business
marketing.
4.
Example of a company using Facebook marketing
services
LARAKI is a Moroccan luxury cars
manufacturer. It founded by Abdeslam
Laraki in Casablanca when he was 31
years old. In 2001 Laraki launch his first
car call Fulgura after a large success,
he expect to launch a new car called
Borac.
Laraki fans page have more than 2000 contacts in
Morocco. They can see pictures and videos of different
models cars of Laraki. In the same time, they can give them
7 | Page
opinions. Laraki isn’t a big business like any businesses in
worldwide. It’s most important that Laraki use this method of
marketing, they spend not money for that because it’s free.
8 | Page