Information Technology Application in Marketing Essay

Information Technology Application in Marketing - Essay Example Facebook, unlike other social networking websites, has a clearly defined target market that starts from students who are enrolled in high schools, college and university. The differentiating factor for Facebook is that it is all focused towards students only through creating study groups, keeping in touch with distant friends and getting information. Students use it to make their social life prominent through using various features of Facebook such as uploading, sharing and commenting on photos. Facebook earns its profit mainly through advertising. It gets involved in three different ways of advertising. One is banner ads, sponsored groups and text announcements. The visitors’ traffic and the time spent on the site also serve as a major indicator for Facebook success (Mitchell, n.d.). GOOGLE Another social media website selected is Google. Google is the most visited website that provides solutions and answers for almost all the questions through its search optimization system. Google is primarily a search engine and serves almost everyone in thirst of some knowledge or information regarding anything. Google generates its profits through online advertising (Channel 4, 2012). Google has involved in an activity called targeted advertising through which organizations use Google Adwords and Adsense to get their names or articles to get displayed on the top (Splatf, 2011). WIKIPEDIA Wikipedia is another social media network that helps individual to gain information on related topics. The business model that Wikipedia has implemented is that people who love to write and want to make their contribution can write an article and then hence upload it. Wikipedia provides a feature to make amendments to article or edit it. And even if any conflict is observed in the provided information it is then resolved by Wikipedia resolution party. The writers or authors here are voluntary writers. They do not do it for any monetary rewards but for internal satisfaction and inte rest. Wikipedia has some donors as well who provide funds to the site, and they are called wiki donors. Wikipedia does not display advertisements as other sites do and also does not charge any subscription fees. It still earns through the web traffic it has, and the number of time spent on the site by each visitor. It does not employ more than 35 employees in its organization and has managed to reduce its administration and operation costs to the least. Sustainability of the models All these three sites are sustaining because of the differentiated service and user interface experience they provide. The value that they are providing to their users is of immense importance. Their business models are different from others and quite uniquely profitable in nature. Facebook earns through its online advertising whereas Google earns through its online search optimization and its own advertising techniques and Wikipedia earns profits through minimizing its overhead cost. Future of Social Med ia Sites The future of these sites would be a more co-operative and user friendly one. These sites would progress now more towards working on virtual reality and making some efforts towards surprising users through adding features more inclined towards 3D virtual reality. How Social media sites are adapting to cell phones and PCs As technology is advancing, access to these websites is to be made from multiple devices that are