Social Media

Man do I ever miss the days of ICQ. Everything was so much simpler back then. That program was basically the only form of social media that we had. There was no Facebook and anyone who used MSN Messenger was an outcast. The internet wasn't flooded with advertising. Things like banner ads and what not weren't even on the table yet. *sigh* Simpler times.

Now there are about 1,000 different ways to communicate with people, and thus just as many ways for advertisers to reach all those people as well. I think it's great for advertisers, absolutely it is. It allows them to really narrow down their audience and target very specific groups of people with their advertisements.

As much as I love the Internet and would probably never stop crying if I couldn't use it, at the same time, it really scares the shit out of me. It's really starting to get a little insane how much I, and the rest of the world, depends on it.

For example, over the holidays I spent about a week at my parent's house where not only is there no Internet, but no computer at all. It was like being a caveman for a few days. I didn't talk to any of my friends really, and I overall just felt really lost without it. That was only for like 4 days too.

I don't even remember the last time I had a phone conversation with someone. I don't mean something quick like "wanna go to a movie?" "ok sure". Done. I mean an actual conversation where you take an hour or so and just talk about what is going on in your lives. Same thing goes for in-person conversations too really. Instead Facebook and MSN and all those other similar programs pretty much take care of all of that for you. There's really no need for phone conversations anymore except maybe to say "hey check your Facebook, I left you a message on there."

The Internet has made is possible to do just about everything without having to interact with

another human being, and like I said, that terrifies me a little. Everything is slowly shifting towards online, so as a person it's weird, but as a person going into the world of advertising, it's actually pretty damn awesome.

The idea of the Internet and social media as a whole has really changed the way advertising is, and can be done. I'm sure it's just going to continue down this road too. As mentioned earlier advertisers can down really be specific about who they are advertising too and can make ads that directly relates to that audience.

Social media even allows them to advertise to people, without those people even realizing they are being advertised to. This was sort of already covered when I was talking about blogs. It doesn't stop there. Facebook, MySpace, all these types of sites are great tools for companies to emply some very subtle advertising to their audience. Hell I'm sure I'm looking at ads half the time I'm on the sites and not even realizing it. It's a really great tool to use.

We talked about it a little in class but social media is also letting smaller companies and businesses market their products. That site we looked at which sells custom made t-shirts is a terrific example of this. You can sell your products, while also talking to those who purchase them. It adds a level of interaction that you don't find with a lot of businesses. These are the sorts of advantages social media can give advertisers.

I think online advertising is absolutely going to become bigger and bigger and becoming more and more innovative as time goes on. Soon it will reach levels of interaction that we haven't even begun to imagine. Be sure to check back in 20 years to see if I was right about this.