Effectiveness of Social Media as Marketing Strategy

Abstract

Social media sites usage as part of a company?s marketing strategy has increased tremendouslyin the past couple of years. Despite of its acclaim, very limited information is available to answer some of the key issues concerned with the effectiveness of social media marketing,ways to measure its return on investment and its target market.Sales performances and facebook activities of five companies were analyzed to identify the correlation between the company involvement on the social media sites and its financial outcomes (ROI). A survey was also conducted of 1,000 Facebookusersto find the relation between the respondents? involvement in social media marketing and changes in their buying decisions and to determine whether people of the age group ranging from 25-35 are the main audience of the social media marketing. The research establishes that marketing effectiveness of social media is highly influenced by its messages/contents quality,its association with the other marketing platformsand the company?s involvement.