Recent studies carried out by researchers of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have drawn interesting conclusions about the potential supremacy of social networks over mass media, as the preferred means for companies to reach out to consumers in the near future. This assertion is founded on the fact that consumers are abandoning traditional mass media to spend more time surfing on social networks and the plausible loss of impact of direct advertising vis a vis indirect marketing.
Television may not be the ultimate medium for companies to communicate with consumers anymore; TV audience is fragmented because it has hundreds of specialized channels to choose from, which increases costs of massive advertisement and reduces general exposure to consumers. Moreover, television ratings are decreasing due to the broadened entertainment options, such as Internet or console gaming. Furthermore, the few viewers a network attracts to a TV program will most likely fast forward or simply change the channel to avoid seeing the advertisements.
On the other hand, nearly a quarter of the world’s population (around 1.4 billion people) uses internet regularly and social media has become the most popular activity on the Web, even more than search engines. Therefore, companies that rely heavily on marketing to sell their branded products or services have spotted Social Networks as a new attractive opportunity to promote their commodities. According to David Grasso, Nike's Chief Marketing Officer, “Facebook is the equivalent for us to what TV was for marketers back in the 1960s. It's an integral part of what we do now."
Enterprises that focus their efforts on innovating in order to position their brands in Social Networks could have outstanding results, because of the possibility to reach millions of consumers worldwide from a single source. For instance, Facebook has more than 500,000,000 members around the world, and about half of them check the site every day. In contrast, around 100,000,000 people watched the last Super Bowl; being the most watched TV program ever.
Another reason to believe that social networks will surpass traditional media as the means to communicate between companies and customers relies on the effectiveness of indirect advertising over direct marketing. The public has come to distrust direct advertising and information provided by sources that are interested on influencing certain conducts. Through social networks, users may be encouraged to indirectly and sometimes even unknowingly promote a product or service to other potential customers. Such is the case of commodities that consumers may publicly approve or recommend on social media through the “like” button or similar applications. These peer to peer marketing strategies may have better results than mass advertising, since a consumer is fond of having greater confidence on a product or service that is recommended by an acquaintance as opposed to a paid actor or sponsored athlete.
It must be noted that social networks do not replace other traditional media campaigns, at least not yet. Hence, companies should consider social media as an additional channel to reach their consumers not as a substitutive or exclusive one.
