Social Media Advertising

After reading the article “Digital Influence Blogs Beat Social Networks for Driving Purchases” I can say I was surprised to learn that blogs are the third most influential digital resource only behind the retail sites and brand sites. I was not surprised however to learn that Facebook is the most influential consumer social media platform.  It is easy to understand why Facebook is the most influential platform for consumers because it leads the charts with number of users and according to the article on average brands spend 57 percent of their social media budget on Facebook (Garibian, 2013). However, this social media budget only consists of on average 10 percent of brands digital advertising budget.

Why do consumers follow brands on Social Media?

Social media has become a great method for brands to advertise content to consumers by why do these consumers choose to follow brands?

Many consumers follow brands for reasons such as

• To learn about products or services
• Keep up with brand-related activities
• Interact with brands through communication
• Enter sweepstakes and promotions
• To make purchases

Effectiveness of Blogs

Even with Facebook being such a dominant force there are other social media platforms that brands need to focus on smaller communities, according to this article 54 percent of consumers say smaller communities have a greater impact on influence than large communities(Garibian, 2013). It seems that the most popular way influencers are going about distributing information is through blogs according to this article 59% of influencers use blogs as their primary source of influence. Influencers are using Facebook as their primary source of blogging with 92 percent of influencers having a Facebook account and 83 percent of these influencers post on Facebook weekly. This is no surprise however when you look at the studies of revenue, referrals and shares this article composed it shows that Facebook is the top social media platform for generating all these goals. Twitter is also a popular platform for social media bloggers and is gaining popularity, being the second most used social media platform for influencers and the second highest in producing shares, referrals, and revenue.

Reference:

Garibian, L. (2013, March 18). Digital Influence: Blogs Beat Social Networks for Driving Purchases. Retrieved December 17, 2017, from http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2013/10336/digital-influence-blogs-beat-social-networks-for-driving-purchases#ixzz2NtxgaqMv