Social Media: Youth And Pakistan

Social Media: Youth And Pakistan This Literature review discusses published information that are reveling to our topic and this information obtained from the others work which has already been done by researchers and published in articles, books, journal and websites. SOCIAL MEDIA Recent trend clearly shows a shift of business users and youth from traditional communication advertising such as television, radio, newspaper and magazines are no longer appealing to them. Social media refers to web based service that allows individuals for sharing, collaborating and taking insight to each other without any geographic barriers and with the help of new media tool of internet. Elliot (2012) DIGITAL MARKETING MARKETING: The growing importance of social media websites particularly YouTube, Face book and LinkedIn and their penetration in the country cannot be ignored by corporate managers who for the most part do not have a effective social media team. A host of local as well as multinational companies operating in Pakistan now see social media as an important marketing tool to promote their brands Baloch (2012) In 2010, business professionals took social media seriously, Social media growth immensely increase by personal users and businesses adoptability. In this year Face book has 600 million users and they are heading towards one billion mark. 20 million people become fan of pages per day, 60 million status updates per day, The average time for users spend is more than 55 minutes. Over 2 billion videos are uploaded in YouTube and 46% of internet users are interact with social media on daily basic. Schrum (2011) As our chosen topic depends on exploratory research so these articles encourage us to determine how social media are effective to target youth of Karachi. Social media uniqueness is to target mass audience by individually and looking to meet new potential consumer. In social media Face book, YouTube and LinkedIn have major growth and it reaches mass audience and youth as well. SOCIAL MEDIA, YOUTH AND PAKISTAN: In the last 10 years Pakistan social media sector growth increase unexpectedly. With the population exceeding over 180 million there is 20 million users connected to internet which is 12% of its population which are much bigger then India 5% of internet users in total population. In Face book there is over 5 million Pakistani users which is 15% of Face book total users and more than half of them lies age between 18 to 24. In 2010 Flood strike in Pakistan than with the help of social media youth of Pakistan utilize social media platform by minute to minute updates in stricken area and motivate the whole population to contribute in relief efforts so there is a huge revelation and impact on social media in the youth of Pakistan. Inam (2011) Social medias impact on youth marketing: Now social media plays an important role in youth life style and companies targeting youth by social networking because it becomes culture in youth to use Face book, YouTube and LinkedIn on daily bases. Usage of Smartphone is also very common in youth to reach social networking because in universities and colleges there is a policy to limit social networking within class timing or working hours so youth now have a Smartphone to reach social websites easily by their pocket phones. In Face book and LinkedIn companies develop pages and put advertisement on it and it has options of like and comment which gives them insight of youth liking and disliking and they collaborating each others as a result of that companies create huge brand image even before its product launch. Blogging is also very effective social media tool to target youth in which companies create discussion section in order to get opinions about brands and services and platform become the source of research, marketing stra tegies and development. Misa (2011) RESEARCHERS THOUGHTS Social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn come with unbelievable techniques to communicate with family, colleges, friends and also market your product in that effective manner that the users of that sites can like your product. All the previous researches that have been done on social media as an effective medium to target the youth has come on that conclusions that social media can be a very handful tool for the companies to market their product. Murdough (2009) have positively agreed on the potential of social media but ike any other marketing tool it is difficult to gauge the kind of impact that it lays on the masses. Through many research surveys the results that came out that identifies that many young peoples age group (18-25) are the more users of networking sites (facebook, twitter, linkdin) then any other age group and due to that these social networking sites are experiencing dramatic world wide growth. Moreover, researchers have contented that the perceived benefit of use of social networking sites achieve network externalities in which positive feedback produces more and more users, thereby increasing its social platform (Powell 2009). Most of the researchers have agreed on Facebook as its statistics indicates that its members are swiftly increasing day by day because its provides a new method of communicating employing computers as a collaborative tool to accelerate group formation and escalate group scope and influence allowing users to present themselves, connect to a social network, and develop and maintain relationship with others. Facebook is being widely used all over the world as it stats tells as compare to the other social networking sites so many researches are giving positive comments about Facebook. As the social media marketing is increasing day by day as many researches have identified in their research so the companies are likely to be taking social media component for their product promotion and marketing very seriously because enhanced engagement in social media has features such as increased speed with which information can be gathered and transmitted, greater volume of information that is easily accessible, more flexibility in how and when information is accessed and much great opportunity to interact with others I a range of context using text, audio or video. However in my opinion social media have has altered the media marketing paradigm by defining the new set of relationships between young people and organizations in which marketing and organizations have become pervasive, creating new hybrid forms that blend communications, content and commerce. Common Theories: Well there are most of the things that are common in every previous research that has been done on social media marketing as an effective medium to target the youth. As social media being a very popular medium among the youth so it has an influence on the purchasing decision. In todays digital-focused marketing environment, the internet as a communication and transaction channel adds two more inputs and influencers of buying behavior to the model. The first one is online marketing mix, which basically represents the controllable online experiences provided by the corporate. The second one is the social media experiences which are by and large beyond the marketers control. In my opinion the social media has a very good impact on the purchasing decision of the users because due to various techniques that many companies are using to promote their product on social media can attract users and they like d that product and ultimately buy it. Various researches have established framework s for social issues that have been discussed by most of the researches in their respective research. Social issues like In (health, education, environment, politics, safetyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦..e.t.c). Many researchers have described in their social marketing campaigns however, the model of communication for social change describes this interactive process best where by a social change in a community improves the health and welfare of all its members, driven by dialogue and collective action. Current scenario: According to the researchers Pakistan is a developing nation where digital networked technologies and new media platforms are just emerging (Yusuf 2008). Although many concluded that that availability of digital technologies and social media platforms facilitates democratic practices and participatory behavior, whether this is equally true for developing countries like Pakistan, is debatable. Most of the researches agues that the ability to use digital technologies and new media meaningfully, impacts participatory behavior and civic action, which is often overcome through the combined use of different technologies and concludes that new media platforms are increasingly effective as tools for community organizing and information dissemination. According to the different stats Pakistan has quit significant numbers of the users of social media that have an active account on different social networking site so they can be targeted through that medium. Our study is based on the topic social media as an effective medium to target the youth of Karachi as Pakistan has quit significant of users on social networking sites and especially Karachi has been amoung the largest city in Pakistan and majority of users resides in Karachi according to the study more then half of the users lie between the age group of 18-24 can be targeted through social media and most of the companies are now working on that. In many previous researches most of the researchers used Exploratory research approach because this is an develop theory we just have to identified whether it is effective or not we just have to testify that so exploratory approach can be used and in my opinion it us the correct approach that is being used. Qualitative methodology being used commonly in previous researches. This is survey research so the Questionnaire being used as an instrument to collect the data because in this type of study you have to gather the thoughts of different users who use the social media network sites so in my opinion this is the best instrument for collecting the data because on the basis of the users opinions you can improve your promoting techniques to promote your product on social media. Conclusion: Analysis of the previous researches and related articles have indicates that social media is a very important tool for networking among youngsters. As they are using these websites and their numbers are increasing day by day. In Pakistan the users are also increasing day by day and these are the good signs for the company who are working in Pakistan. These websites are helping the users to build their professional contacts and provides the users with various networking applications that make them hooked on to these social media websites. There is also an increasing trend among youngsters to buy products online through these websites so thats makes marketers to realized the importance of social media website as an essential component of integrated marketing communications. So many companies are driving different research methods to target the youth effectively on social media. Promotion on social media can actually encourage constant interaction with the customers, gaining an insight on their like and preferences and problems associated with the products. So through analysis of all the previous evidence it assures that social media marketing is an effective tool to target the youth.