What else do people need to see, in order for them to be convinced in Social Media? If people want to see results of social media campaigns, well than there are plenty of examples of successes; but even when results are displayed, it’s still evident that that it isn’t enough. A prime example is the Harry Potter Theme Park called Wizards of Harry Potter in Orlando, Fl. The marketing department head told seven credible bloggers about the idea and they wrote about all about it in the blogosphere. This social media strategy of telling seven bloggers was extremely successful because it garnered the attention of 350,000,000 people to talk about it in twenty-four hours in the World Wide Web. Instead of traditional marketing, in which thousands upon thousands would have been spent, the marketing department head opted to use viral marketing (an extremely cost effective strategy), and it proved to be a huge success.

The main reason for the resistance of many people, is the mere fact that social media is relatively new and foreign, especially for the older generation. In other words, these people can be classified as xenophobic – a person who has an unreasonable fear of that is foreign or strange – and is usually the people who are stuck in the traditional marketing ways. The people that are fearful of social media see this marketing method is not proven (even though there are many proven campaigns), and a “traditional marketing intruder”, as a way to disregard the benefits and to keep the efforts of traditional marketing in the driver seat.

The traditional marketing department understand that social media is a platform where control is no longer in their hands rather in the hands of everyone and anyone. Can this be a possible reason why people aren’t convinced on Social Media? Maybe, but the one thing that is beneficial is that the people (who I might add buy the products/services or whatever it may be contribute to the monetary success of a business) can make the business more efficient, in the sense of what they want to see, what needs improvement, what should be omitted and etc. However, the marketers do not believe it should be that way but the other way; the marketing department should have absolute control over those issues. Another reason can be the ineffective use by many people of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook that contribute to their reasons as being non-beneficial. But if results are what people want to see than here are a few from Facebook and Twitter.

Since, its inception in 2006, Twitter claims to have around 175 million users and to have tweet promoted (to have it be a trending topic) it cost 125, 000 thousands per day. If businesses are willing to spend 125,000 to have a trending top in Twitter, what can be deduced of the benefit of social media? As for Facebook, since its inception in 2004, it is closing in on the 1 Billion users (right now, it’s around 600 Million users) and an Award-Winning feature film was created based on the social networking giant. Among the many statistics from both social media sites, the aforementioned should be enough to convince a non-believer of integrating social media into the marketing efforts to capitalize its many benefits. Instead of hindering the copious benefits of social media, these xenophobic people should welcome social media with open arms, for it is only trying to enhance the marketing efforts and not intrude. If a feature film, social media sites that boasts close to 1 Billion users and a promoted tweet costing 125,000 per day does not convince a person that social media is beneficial to a business than, one should ask Mark Zuckerberg, a co-creator of Facebook and Jack Dorsey, creator of Twitter, what they think.