Impact of Social Media in Marketing

     Just in 2015, eBay released a prediction that the cost of social media in the retail sector will increase double from $2.28 billion to around $4.56 billion in the next two years (Howell). Conventionally, social networks were not used as marketing tool to directly enhance e-commerce sales. However, in the report presented by Nielsen through its Global e-commerce report in August 2014, 61% of the population spends more time doing research on online channels about the products they want to buy[1]. More interestingly, 43% of the customers stated that they browse through social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Google in order to seek idea about the products they want to purchase[2].

    In the recent report presented by State of Corporate Social Media it showed that 72% of the senior managers confirmed that social media has remarkably great impact on their business organizations in terms of increase in revenue. Moreover, they agreed that this increase would not be possible without the aid of social media. The social media does not only affect the financial aspect of the company but it also increased the company’s quality of customer service, customer insights, employees’ engagement and development of products. More interestingly, most of the respondents of the survey said that they are very sure that this trend in social media will continue to progress in the coming years. In fact 83% of them believed that the public has not yet fully utilized the potential of social media[3]. Hence, it would not be a big surprise if in the coming years the impact of the experiments conducted by companies on the utilization of social media will be observed and experience in marketing

   The presented statistics shows the impact of social media in motivating customers to do shopping online through judgment of the visual content and the description of the product presented in the web.  While there are still other customers who have hesitation in making purchases through the social networks, it cannot be denied that the online shopping trend is growing rapidly. It further shows that this growth and progress will ultimately have greater and positive consequence on online business[4].   

   As the world progresses in new era of marketing, it is apparent that business companies have continued to advance in the utilization of social media as a fundamental part of the advertising toolset. Moreover, the marketing in social media is remarkably increasing. Gervelis emphasized that by 2018 social media users will increase up to 2.44 billion from today’s users which is 1.79 billion. This showed one importance fact, the social media continues to be a significant element in marketing despite the nature and categorization of business is it.  

    While it is true that there are still marketers who are struggling on how they could apply social media on their products and what marketing strategies they could employ, but in 2015 the social media will continue its expansion in the digital mobile networks.

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1. Con, Jordan. The Evolution of Social Media Marketing “Success”. Digital Marketing Magazine. January 2015.

2. Ibid., 12.

3.Ibid., 15.

4. Con, Jordan. The Evolution of Social Media Marketing “Success”. Digital Marketing Magazine. January 2015.