Advertising online has grown over the years. In 2005, the Guardian had estimated that some people had seen up to 3500 advertisements per day. 12 years later, we can only assume that we have been exposed to further advertisements as platforms such as social media has grown significantly over the years.

What social media platforms are out there?

There are many social media platforms that are available to use including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. However, the number of active users vary for each platform which makes popularity an individual preference

Source: Chaffey, 2017

The graph shows that Facebook has the most active users worldwide. This is closely followed by Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger, which are based around creating conversations with one another. It also shows some less advertised applications such as QQ and WeChat. In the UK, they are not as popular as the more known apps which include Snapchat and Twitter (which rank lower in the graph)

Myself as a Consumer

You are and I am are consumers. We purchase goods and use services. However, do we actually consider what makes us do those things? Do we actual consider that we may be targeted in a segmented market which use Social Media?

From my own personal experiences, I have seen that advertising and marketing campaigns are particularly engaging when they are on Facebook. I have noticed that when I am scrolling through my Facebook home page, advertisements that contain videos are automatically played, resulting in me watching. I find that they are interesting and normally catch my attention.

I would also say that in addition to Facebook, Twitter can be exciting and different for advertising as it is normally re-tweeted by my friends rather than a random selection on my home page. This makes it more personal as the use of re-tweet can be powerful if you and your twitter friends have the same interests.

However, I do use other social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat and I do see many advertisements that appeal to me. Instagram do have a strategy of having advertisements on the home page which are in a form of a small video clip or a picture. When it is a picture,

The Future of Social Media Advertising

As Facebook has a significantly higher amount of active users compared to the rest of the platforms, it could be expected that Facebook will remain that way. The only change that could happen would have to be drastic enough to change the statistics hugely.

I also believe that it could be changed through generations. Generation Y users, who are born between 1980 and 2000 (The Telegraph, 2014) may start to use different social platforms to the older generation or people born after 2000.

There may be other applications that can be used to advertising which may be much more effective and popular in the future. However, I think for now we can safely say that Facebook is still number one!

Click here for an interesting journal about Mobile Social Media

Thanks for reading

Leila

References

Chaffey, D. (2017) Smart Insights. Global Social Media Statistics Summary 2017

The Guardian (2005). Shopper’s eye view of ads that pass us by.

The Telegraph (2014). Gen Z, Gen Y, baby boomers – a guide to the generations.