Social Media: The Mighty Media

“If I want to knock a story off the front page, I just change my hairstyle” - Hillary Clinton

Today’s world is fully influenced and captivated by media in several ways. Either you want to target your message to the people whom you want to hear it, increase your profile among decision makers, shape / reshape the opinions, or even if you want to play the role of a watchdog, you find media as an effective medium to transform your dreams into reality. In other words, we can say that the media is one of the most powerful entities on earth. Due to the dominating power of the media, it can make an innocent stand guilty, and vice versa. It is quite interesting to know that in 1704, the first newspaper ad was published in the USA, while in 1941 the first TV ad was broadcasted again in the USA. Let’s take a swift look at the conventional media.

CONVENTIONAL MEDIA LANDSCAPE IN PAKISTAN

The US, China and Japan are the biggest advertising markets in the world. The historical background of Pakistan’s media has been densely rich. Under the banner of Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC), Radio Pakistan started its transmission independently and soon became popular among mass advertisers, and a key tool for their promotional campaigns. With the influx of PTV, advertising trends were changed when Pakistan’s state owned television, PTV started broadcasting in 1964. The origin of this new media tool immediately shifted the focus on this medium for seizing and increasing the viewership in urban areas. Being the only broadcasting channel of Pakistan, it began to expand, and the same happened with the viewership. In a very short span of time it became the most resourceful channel for the advertisers as well.

In 1983, PTV sports division was established which helped PTV to a great deal and raised the earnings. The international matches were also sponsored by multinationals, and sports figures became icons and along the way cricketers and hockey players made their appearances in commercials. In that era, dramas (soaps) became extremely famous in Pakistan and many advertisement companies found the strategy to cling to the viewer’s interest by floating away a variety of commercials, simultaneously filling in the gaps. In the following eras, PEMRA was established in 2002, which issued licenses to many new broadcasting channels, through which the system expanded.

The 1st, 2nd and 3rd industrial revolution changed the world and social living and now we stand on the edge of a technological revolution that will fundamentally modify the way we live and work. The ‘4th Industrial Revolution’ has almost diminished the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. Endless possibilities have created by connecting billions of people and mobile devices, with unprecedented processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge, blended with emerging technology breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, material science, energy storage, and quantum computing. When compared, the 4th is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace. Most of the advertising budget was dedicated to conventional mediums but with passage of time the impact of technology and digital platforms on consumer behavior made the traditional media channels and advertising methods less effective. It does not mean that the print media or TV will evaporate or lose its significance, but the lion’s share will not remain with the traditional or conventional media. Among the greatest innovations of technology, no wonder social media is the greatest of them all: not just in terms of communication or connectivity, yet also in our capability to market those directly which we want to reach. Similarly, social media platforms have become essential tools for business from quite many years by now. Among hundreds of marketing strategies, social media advertising is taking the lead consistently. For the interest of our readers, we have tied up the useful information about the most commonly used platforms of social media. Let’s have an overview.

FACEBOOK

Broadly accepted, Facebook is one of the best platforms for marketing and business with a variety of audiences of almost every age. It is also considered to be the world’s largest social media platform with billions of monthly users. There are a number of features of Facebook to benefit your business from, for instance, with Facebook ads, it enables you to target those who are willing and prepared to purchase your products or services, which ensures that your business gets your ad content in front of the target market at the accurate time. Other reasons include the convenience of its users to purchase / shop from your company through this platform, as it is just a matter of clicking the button. It is convenient, as allowed by Facebook for brands to directly get connected with the customers through Facebook messenger facility. Moreover, the most popular Facebook fan pages have more than 100 million fans – Grammy-winning Colombian pop singer Shakira, and FIFA’s best player in the world Cristiano Ronaldo - the Portuguese soccer superstar are ranked first as celebrity brand figures, based on the number of their Facebook followers.

INSTAGRAM

Another popular channel, Instagram has great reach. It invites brands with visual content, produces and posts the content consequently. Through attractive visuals and videos, you can attract a great number of followers and Instagram can hence prove as an effective branding tool. In order to capitalize on the billions of users, more effective marketing schemes need to be formulated. Instagram is also considered to be a resourceful channel for businesses that are directing to reach an audience that’s 30 or younger in age. There are also other influential benefits that one can reap for their business through this platform. The most unique feature of Instagram is its appealing visual displays which help a great deal to convey your brand’s details. Important business news and updates can be shared through the video feature of Instagram which makes the rapid flow of business expanding, along with keeping the followers posted. In order to make your Instagram business account more noticeable and to keep a track of the particulars, pertinent hashtags can make the search stress-free and prompt.

Twitter is an essential channel for business marketing, which is even a preferred choice of multinationals. It is also considered to be among the top ten websites in the United States. It is the best platform for latest news and a number of trending matters. Through twitter also, it becomes convenient for the brands to reach out to their customers and provide opportunities to the organizations for digital advertisements. Hashtags in twitter equally makes the search hassle free and prompt.

LinkedIn is one of the best social media platforms for the professionals to focus on. Connectivity with business professionals pertaining to any industry becomes convenient with LinkedIn, as it consents you to mark them by industry or even job title. It is also used by companies as a job opening and job recruiting channel which helps the recruiters to find their target market along with an overview of their professional background. LinkedIn is a great platform for business-minded people who are open to networking opportunities, and are on the lookout for better ways in order to improve their working style. There are certain groups in LinkedIn that users can join, based on their industry, job purposes, or career interests. With this feature, it provides a brilliant opportunity for brands to get in touch with the decision makers across different industries.

Right behind Google, YouTube, in a very short span of time has become the second largest search engine in the world. It is an astounding channel for video sharing with billions of users. Through video content, business connectivity proves to be effective and acts more efficiently in engaging the target clients. YouTube has allowed brands to access an infinite amount of video hosting, and its content can also be easily shared on other social media platforms for larger spread. Another outstanding feature of YouTube is the content that you look for on your brand’s YouTube channel, can be found in both the platforms i.e. YouTube and Google.

Pinterest is known to be a graphics-heavy platform which has laid the foundation of images pertaining to décor, art, new recipes, fashion tips, and other range of topics too. In order to generate more traffic, this is a perfect platform for brands to get their images shared on it. A pinned product makes the relevant search easier, with just a click of a button, and boosts the feasibility for brands to gain upsurge trades.

Social media, undoubtedly is a mighty tool for numerous developments, of which few include generating and finding new leads, learning of marketing strategies, forming brand awareness, gaining a variety of insights, improvising clientele, looking for ways of improving the customer services and so forth. The foremost requirement to hit the right social media platform for your business evolution, is to first set your targets that you want to achieve, figure out the target audience of your business, and then opt for a platform that truly is on a part with the type of content you create.