Social Media's Impact on Marketing

Social Media is everywhere these days. Evey one has a Facebook, Myspace, Twitter or Linksys and use them daily for communication. These sites make money off of the advertisements they display on the sides or the webpage. But these sites also provide both positive and negative feedback about products or services that their patrons have used. For example, when may people post a status or write a comment about the same thing, they are grouped together on Facebook so everyone knows what a popular topic their friends are posting about. If these posts have to do with a product or service they revived from a company, whether the comments are positive or negative, they are published so all of their friends can see what their opinion was. This can be helpful or hurtful for a company, depending upon the feedback the Facebook users are giving. Many times I have found that if somebody is not pleased with a certain product or service, they will tweet or post a status about it complaining. This may just be "complaining" or "venting" to them, but for the company they are writing about this is negative publicity and can hurt their business. However the other side of this argument, is that when people are pleased with a product or service, they also write about that, and the good experience they had. I personally find that people take to Facebook and Twitter more often when they are disappointing in a company than when they are happy with a service they received. Probably because they are hoping for some sympathy from their friends, or to hear about a similar experience from another person. These posts to social media sites are simple things that people do everyday, and don't think much about. But when you think about the affect that your opinion is having on a business you can understand it from a marketing standpoint. Marketing executives spend hundreds of hours brainstorming how to advertise a product or service, and thousands of dollars to put their idea in motion. But with one sentence and s click of a button, all eight hundred of you your Facebook friends now know your opinion about a product or service. Do you think social media has affected Marketing is a more positive or negative way?