Week 5 EOC: Social Networks and Job Hunting

We are currently living in a world that is being increasingly controlled by social media. With the invention of Twitter and the growing popularity of Facebook many companies are gaining more insight into what consumers want in a product and what products are in demand. In the past few months it has been shown that these cites aren’t just for market research but people are now looking for jobs through social networking. “The majority of social-media traffic to Waste Management Inc.'s careers website comes from Facebook.”(Joe Light p.1) Waste Management Inc. is a website that is directed at posting online resumes for job seekers. By having an advertisement on Facebook, Waste Management Inc. has seen a spike in its website’s traffic. Although Facebook accounts for less than 1% of a company’s hires, it is expected to be a competitor by next year. Companies are also hiring consumers to market their brand. By giving a consumer who is enthusiastic about brand knowledge about the brand to go along with their loyalty to the brand companies feel as though they can reach more consumers. “Brand ambassador programs leverage the power of peer-to-peer communication.”(p. 143 Marketing: An Introduction for Education Management Corporation, 10th Edition) Companies feel that you are more likely to buy a product from a familiar accessible face. “What they aren’t, he adds, are the super cool kids on campus. “We used to assume the best reps would be the cool kids in any given group. But we learned that most kids are not cool. If marketers want consumers to feel a connection to their ambassadors and to feel that an ambassador is accessible, they have to look beyond the cool customers” who are typically thought of as influentials.” (p. 144 Marketing: An Introduction for Education Management Corporation, 10th Edition) Social Networking is an immensely powerful tool for businesses because of the amount of information consumers post on them. The potential has barely been tapped into and one can only imagine where it is going from here.