Social media advertising is heating up with an open battle between search engines and social media networks. Google insured itself with the purchase of Youtube a while ago to solidify its lead as the number one search engine. Bing and Yahoo have combined their search business with Bing's search engine taking over Yahoo's. This gives Bing about 24% of market share and Google down to about 68%. Facebook recently passed Google in traffic volume and is integrating greater search capabilities with its 'Open Graph' program. People who willingly share their likes and dislikes will be getting more tailored search results in response to their open graph. This translates into better targeted ad-spend.
This tells us that web 2.0 marketing is getting to be more crucial than ever because small businesses have the greatest chance to be seen and heard in the social media networks and at a far lower cost. The cost is investing time into social networking, listening to what people are saying about your business and responding in positive ways. People appreciate when they see a company really listening to them and pass on a good word about the company through their social networks. Internet marketing is certainly changing in favor of the consumer. Recently GM through it's social media invited people who had participated on the net with the company, whether it was positive commenting or grievance commenting, to an unveiling of what GM was planning to build over the next three years. One particular model was criticized so much that not long after, the model was dropped and won't be built. Social media networking probably saved GM millions on that decision alone.
In NetMoreNow's web 2.0 marketing strategy, there are website cross promotions included that help create some social buzz and make some news for a social media press release. The promotional marketing performed in the first thirty days of the website promotion, gives the business owner the internet marketing strategies and tools to continue promoting their business with.
