The Marriage of Social Media and Business

Although Facebook started as a social networking tool exclusively for the college crowd nearly a decade ago in February 2004 launched by a socially awkward Harvard geek as a means to "get girls" and gain insider information to exclusive college parties, love it or hate it, Facebook today has grown to be an dispensable digital marketing tool for businesses: The inevitable "marriage" of social media and business resulting in the "procreation of profit," so to speak.

Like everyone else, I initially joined Facebook to get in touch with and connect with people from my past and present, but being the information junkie that I am, Facebook gradually became a tool to gain information about things and topics that interested me. I was particularly drawn to FB fanpages that constantly posted valuable content which kept me engaged, and ultimately, won my business when I felt (based on emotions) that I needed their product/service badly enough to further enrich my life. This phenomenon intrigued me--how businesses can successfully use social media platforms to influence consumer behavior--such as my own because I am usually a hard sell.


In short, in addition to Facebook, the social media platforms that seemed to work better for businesses are YouTube, Yelp, blogging, twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

On the other hand, Social media platforms, in my opinion, that are geared more for personal use are Instagram, Viddy, Path, Google+, meetup.com and Tumblr because these platforms haven't influenced me as a consumer to "buy" as of yet, although it will be interesting to see how these platforms will evolve to influence the marketplace in the near future.