IMPACTS OF ADVERTISEMENTS IN SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

O.S.Karthick babu, D.Cs.E, (B.E) Electronics and Comm., Thiagarajar college of Engineering, Madurai-625012, India, Email: karthicksofteng@gmail.com, Mobile no: 9715577631.

D.Senthil kumar, D.Ec.E, (B.E) Electronics and Comm., Thiagarajar college of Engineering, Madurai-625003, India, Email: sssclad@gmail.com, Mobile no: 9597373773.

O.P.Vivek Sriram, (B.E) Electronics and Communication, Thiagarajar college of Engineering, Madurai-625016, India, Email: vivekop.ece@gmail.com, Mobile no: 9003433906.

S.Sivanath (B.E) Electronics and Communication, Thiagarajar college of Engineering, Madurai-624005, India, Email: sivanathshanmugavel@gmail.com, Mobile no: 9487691859.

We sincerely pass our regards and thankfulness to INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION SOCIETY (ITS), IIM AHMEDABAD, IDEA CELLULAR for giving us an opportunity to showcase our talents and able to do a contribution to the society and also we would like to thank our Department for encouraging us and those who helped for successful completion of the paper.

Yours sincerely, SIVANATH SHANMUGAVEL, KARTHICK BABU.O.S., SENTHIL KUMAR.D, VIVEK SRIRAM.O.P.

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ABSTRACT Social networking- a place where people can use networks of online friends and group memberships to keep in touch with current friends, reconnect with old friends or create reallife friendships through similar interests or groups and share their social experiences. Social network advertising is a term that is used to describe a form of ONLINE ADVERTISING that focuses on social networking sites. Our research is about the impact of advertisements on social networks that reveals the fact that how far it conveys the actual information. Viral marketing takes advantage of networks of influence among customers to inexpensively achieve large changes in behavior. Social networks can take advantage of demographic data on your profile and hence target the advertisement directly to you. To discuss why marketers are increasing spending on social media, what it means for other marketing budgets, what is realtime bidding and how it will change your job, and why the privacy issue might be the trend to halt all trends? We take into account the fact that knowledge of the network is partial, and that gathering that knowledge can itself have a cost. Our results show the robustness and utility of our approach. By any chance you are wondering how you can be able to advertise your business, to know about its reach, its position in the stage. Our paper concentrates on the impact of advertisements in social networks and the users in advantageous ways and some key methodologies to improve its marketing potential. The proposed study includes the perspective of the consumers. It attempts to answer the following questions:
1. Is social network advertising effective in sales for companies or is it simply ending up in

attracting junk traffic?

2. Which is the most preferred Social Network advertising approach? 3. Does a customer like being approached on social networking sites?

Keywords: Social Networks, Advertisements, Marketing.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.V SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES (SNSs)...VI ADVERTISING ON SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES:..VII ABOUT SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES.IX o FACEBOOK...X o TWITTER...XI o LINKEDIN..XII WHY SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES ARE USED AS AN ADVERTISING TOOL?...........................................................................................XII INTENTION OF RESEARCH..XIV SOME WORTH WHILE STATISTICS TO LOOK AT....XV INFERENCE AND FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS.XX BIBLIOGRAPHYXXI

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INTRODUCTION A human social network can be a group of friends living within a city, or a group of college classmates who remain in frequent contact socially. It can also be a group formed specifically to accomplish a poorly structured set of tasks over time, like a business school MBA learning team. Humans in all cultures at all times form complex social networks; the term social network here means ongoing relations among people that matter to those engaged in the group, either for specific reasons (like fantasy football, cancer support groups, task forces at work) or for more general expressions of mutual solidarity (like families, clans, friends, social clubs). Social networks among individuals who may not be related can be validated and maintained by agreement on objectives, social values, or even by choice of entertainment, such as a group of people who meet for tailgating parties when their professional football team plays home games. Membership in these networks can be relatively permanent (extended families, which endure for lifetimes) or flexible (pregnancy support groups, in which members rotate out after a few months). They involve reciprocal responsibilities and roles that may be altruistic or self-interest based (or a combination or both). Social networks are trusted because of shared experiences and the perception of shared values or shared needs. A professor is likely to request recommendations for an accountant from another professor, assuming that their requirements are similar and that a colleagues recommendation will be both relevant to his needs and trustworthy. New parents will get recommendations from their neighbors for a pediatrician and, over time, will get recommendations for a baby sitter. Friends tell friends about restaurants and movies. Business interest in online social networks in many cases is based upon the belief that the networks will be trusted, that trust will lead to trusted recommendations, that trusted recommendations will lead to sales, and that these sales can somehow be harnessed to produce revenues for the network operator. It is not yet clear to what extent the relationships in virtual social networks are trusted or valued, or to what extent they can be harnessed and monetized without destroying the trust on which the entire business model is based. v

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES (SNSs) We define social networking sites as web based services that allow individuals to construct a public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site. Other way of defining Social networking sites is that it is a place where people can use networks of online friends and group memberships to keep in touch with current friends, reconnect with old friends or create reallife friendships through similar interests or groups. Besides establishing important social relationships, social networking members can share their interests with other likeminded members by joining groups and forums. Some networking can also help members find a job or establish business contacts. Social networking sites include Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, orkut and so on. Most social networking websites also offer additional features. In addition to blogs and forums, members can express themselves by designing their profile page to reflect their personality. The most popular extra features include music and video sections. Members can read bios of their favorite music artists from the artist's profile page as well as listen to their favorite songs and watch music videos. The video section can include everything from membergenerated videos from hundreds of subjects to TV clips and movie trailers. What makes social network sites unique is not that they allow individuals to meet strangers, but rather that they enable users to articulate and make visible their social networks. On many of the large sites, participants are not necessarily networking or looking to meet new people instead, they are primarily communicating with people who are already a part of their extended social network. While SNS have implemented a wide variety of technical features, their backbone consists of visible profiles that display an articulated list of friends who are also users of the system. Profiles are unique pages where one can type oneself into being. After joining an SNS, an individual is asked to fill out forms containing a series of questions. The profile is generated using the answers to these questions, which typically include descriptions such as age, location, interests, and an about me Section. Most sites also encourage users to upload a profile photo. Some sites allow users to enhance their profiles by adding multimedia content or

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modifying their profiles look and feel. Others, such as Facebook, allow users to add modules (Applications) that enhance their profile. After joining a social network site, users are prompted to identify others in the system with whom they have a relationship. The label for these relationships differs depending on the site popular terms include Friends, Contacts and Fans. Most SNSs require bi-directional confirmation for Friendship, but some do not. These one directional ties are sometimes labeled as Fans or Followers. The public display of connections is a crucial component of SNSs. The friends list contains links to each friends profile, enabling viewers to traverse the network graph by clicking through the Friends lists. On most sites, the list of Friends is visible to anyone who is permitted to view the profile, although there are exceptions. Many SNSs also provide a mechanism for in users to leave messages on their Friends profiles. This feature typically involves leaving comments, Although sites employ various labels for this feature. In addition, SNSs often have a private messaging feature similar to webmail. While both private messages and comments are popular most of the major SNSs, they are not universally available. Beyond profiles, Friends, comments, and private messaging, SNSs vary greatly in their features and user base. Some have photo sharing or video sharing capabilities others have built blogging and instant messaging technology. While SNSs are often designed to be widely accessible, many attract homogeneous populations initially, so it is not uncommon to find groups using sites to segregate themselves by nationality, age, educational level, or other factors that typically segment society even if that was not the intention of the designers. ADVERTISING ON SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES: Social network advertising is a term that is used to describe a form of ONLINE ADVERTISING that focuses on social networking sites. Major benefits of advertising on a social networking site (facebook, myspace, friendster, bebo friendster, orkut...and many others) is that advertisers can take advantage of the users demographic information and target their advertisements appropriately. Direct advertising based on the network of friends is the most effective format but also causes the most controversy. Indirect advertising is an innovative vii

marketing technique in which a company will create a 'page' or 'group' those users can choose to join. The best use out of social networks is not to make money directly off them, but to harness their marketing potential and to use them to market your own business. We put forth the concerned networking features, friend focus, search, security, help & support. Social networks provide the ability to set profiles to private in some way or another. Additionally they have the ability to report and block users. A good social network goes above and beyond just allowing users to post profiles and update pictures. Additional features includes music sections, video uploads, groups and more. The object of a social network is to find friends and expand relationships. Top social networking websites allows members to search for other members in a safe and easy to use environment. Common search functions include search by name, city, school and email address. Social network sites are self-explanatory. No doubt social network is a significant new way of reaching people, but the market is far from being mature. Our research seeks to put it on a firmer footing by mining these data. The Knowledge-sharing sites, where customers review products and advice each other, are a fertile source for this type of data mining. SNSs continue to add new features and developments on a consistent basis. Since it is free to create an account, SNSs has to generate its revenue elsewhere, through a venue such as advertising. Companies can utilize SNSs feature to reach their audiences in different ways. Gangadharbatla [1] states that SNS are changing the way advertisers reach consumers, and that these changes are transforming online advertising all together. There are a variety of ways to use SNS, and the different features allow creativity and experimentation in advertising. For instance in Facebook, when users log-on, they are taken to a homepage called a News Feed, where they were allowed to view those advertisements. Consumers use the net to see what they want, when they want it. The net will not support entrapment, and consumers who are escaping advertisements through TVs are unlikely to become attracted to full time advertisement programming or become captive viewers of any form of online advertising. The modern consumer views the net as transparent and naturally occurring community postings and the recommendations of known friends will outweigh paid placements and paid reviews. In this paper we extend our techniques to analyze the impacts of such marketing. We optimize the amount of time spent by each customer, rather than just getting an opinion. We take viii

into account the fact that knowledge of the network is partial, and that gathering that knowledge can itself have a cost. Our results show the robustness and utility of our approach. By any chance you are wondering how you can be able to advertise your business, the goods and services that you are offering on any social networking site that you deem fit then you can be able to do that by outsourcing the service. This means that you will have your adverts posted by different people to the friends on this social networking site but at a fee. MySpace, Rout and Fraudster grew as means to stay in touch with friends, meet new people online and to share ideas. LinkedIn has a similar slant it is great for entrepreneurs and professionals who want to mine their contacts for hiring / outsourcing. And Flicker is just a blindingly simple tool for sharing photos. The success of social networks marks a dynamic shift in how people are using the Internet. Weve evolved from just searching for information to creating and participating in social spaces with other individuals through the Internet. The websites allow you to post what services you require done for you, like posting the adverts where the people whom you will find suitable will help you advertise on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Key words: Social network advertising, direct advertising, indirect advertising, Effective advertisements ABOUT SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES Even though there are several social networks that are flourishing on the internet today, we went with these three websites- Face book, Linked in, Twitter for the following reasons: 1. Reach 2. Prominence 3. Uniqueness 4. Purpose 5. Customizability 6. Data and Personal Experience

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FACEBOOK Facebook is launched on February 4, 2004 and its a pioneer in social networking with 800+ million active users worldwide. Its motive is to make the world a more open place by helping people connect and share. Its revenue is mainly from Banner advertisements and referral marketing Revenue (Estimated In Millions)[3] YEAR 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 REVENUE $52 $150 $280 $775 $2,000 $4,270 GROWTH 188% 87% 177% 158% 114%

In India, Facebook is used by 42 per cent of mobile users but only accounts for 27 per cent of all mobile page views in the country. Social networking is the most preferred activity of a majority of mobile users around the world who surf internet on their handsets, a survey has revealed. And, Facebook has come as a clear leader among all the social networking sites. Facebook is also the second most popular site visited by Opera Mini users from India according to the 'State of the Mobile Web' report conducted by Opera Software. Traditionally Indians are known to spend their time on search and email related activities on the mobile web but with the boom in the handheld-devices market, Indians have shown a major transformation in usage patterns. Today, availability of content and ease of access have catapulted a range of content-rich portals to rise up in the most visited domains list. According to the report, Facebook has witnessed 1686 per cent increase in its share since April 2010 the social x

media has so changed the dynamics of the internet usage trend in India (approx 3 hr) that even Google, which was almost synonymous to the world of internet, lags far behind (1 hr 50 min) on average time spent by users searching something, to freaking on Facebook.[2] TWITTER Twitter is the second largest social network site in the world with 300+ million active users world wide. Its motive is to follow your interests. Service type of Twitter is microblogging. Its revenue is about $140million as per 2010.Its based on the principle of followers for a celebrity and total number of tweets.[3] 57% of all Indian Twitter users have joined the platform in less than a year! With such quick rise in popularity and with masses coming into fold, brands and advertisers are have to quickly adapt to the ever changing dynamics of this medium.

Source:http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/09/21/11-new-twitter-facts-figures-and-growthstatistics-plus-infographic/

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LINKEDIN LinkedIn stands for its professional status in social networking. Its the best of its kind. Globally it has 135+ million active users. Relationships matters here. Revenue is around $121millions [3]. LinkedIn looks like the most professional looking of all the social networking services, and is very oriented toward your professional network and not your broader personal network. LinkedIn allows members to look for jobs, seeking out experts in a particular area, or to make contact with other professionals through a chain of trusted connections. LinkedIn Advertisements is a self-service advertising solution that allows you to create and place text advertisements on prominent pages on LinkedIn. People click on your advertisements and visit your website. You specify which LinkedIn members view your advertisements by selecting a target audience: by job title, job function, industry, geography, age, gender, company size, company name or LinkedIn Group. Control your advertising costs by setting a budget and only pay for the clicks or impressions that you receive.

Target advertisements by job function, industry & more Pay per click or per impressions No long-term contracts. No commitments Start with as little as $10 per day

WHY SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES ARE USED AS AN ADVERTISING TOOL? From the last decade, social networking is on the rise for business reasons and also for personal use. With its popularity increasing day by day, the need for business tables to go social is indispensable. There are four main reasons for social networks used as advertising tools. 1. Cost efficiency- Advertising on social networks is relatively cheap compared to other Traditional media, it usually has a similar or expanded reach at much lower costs. In Addition, it is possible for companies to generate free publicity through creative Advertising techniques. There have been a number of successful viral marketing

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Campaigns in YouTube and Facebook in the recent years. Creating a page for a brand in facebook is free which is cost efficiency and also creates a large number of active followers. 2. Large reach- Since social networking websites has millions of active users, it has become more popular and acts as a good medium for sharing their SOCIAL EXPERIENCE and helps in building relationships. The impact for a social network is the reach of an advertisement on a large scale. With its demand for advertisement is on the rise, displaying an advertisement is significant in such networks is essential for its improvement in potential. The reach by a social network is greater than any other mass media of its kind. 3. Targeted advertising- Advertisers have access to a great deal of information about Users and their interests, allowing them to customize and target their advertisements to a degree not yet seen in any other advertising medium. For example, if a user lists pro Wrestling as an interest on their Facebook profile, the websites advertising system Will generate advertisements based on that particular interest. However, this can raise Privacy issues: Facebooks Beacon targeted advertising system suffered a great deal of backlash and had to be modified heavily to appease its users. 4. Time spent online- People are spending increasing amounts of time online, especially on social networking websites, at the expense of traditional advertising media such as television and newspapers. This can be viewed as a result of many of the traditional functions news, television shows of the old advertising Media being shifted online to social networks such as Digg and YouTube. As a result, Advertisers are increasingly looking for ways to reach out to consumers who are Spending more and more time online [1].

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INTENTION OF RESEARCH Social networking has been used by most of the people in and around the nations. It has reached even to basic sectors. Despite the enormous growth of social networks in these years, the advertisements sectors have never faced major success due to several reasons. Thus, a useful growth turning into an effectual way for those sectors. To make it effective, we have to put-forth a positive trait in this fast moving world by proposing some new methodologies and inducing some modifications to the existing system. I) II) To determine the impacts of advertisements on social networking sites. To determine the criteria for successful advertising in social networking medium I) To Determine The Impacts Of Advertisements On Social Networking Sites. In the past few decades most people said that social networks were a waste of time and resources. But in the past five years, the popularity of social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut and LinkedIn has created more popularity among users with no end in sight. Due to this apparent stability, many people are now wondering about the benefits of social media networking. Nowadays Social networking sites created a new trend of approach to make the business even to reach the end user, no doubt that the bigger social networking sites out there are making huge profits, and so are the companies that advertise through them. Some might argue that these websites are making money off of their users, and that theyre just using their members. Still, most people who belong to social networking sites dont think theyre being taken advantage of. Based on these we have considered three popular social networks which topped on survey list of maximum usage which will be discussed later in this paper.

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SOME WORTH WHILE STATISTICS TO LOOK AT: 1) 60% of the social networking traffic come from Non Metro-Cities but the highest traffic generating city still remains to be a Metro i.e. Mumbai. 2) The highest number of active users is from the 15-24 age groups but Linked In has a different age group of active users i.e. 25-34 age-groups. 3) The male-female ratio shows consistency with the overall population break-up by gender i.e. 80:20 in favor of males. 4) Social media in India reaches out to 60 per cent of the online Indian audience. 5) Facebook and Orkut, together cater to about 90 per cent of the users in the social media space. 6) Facebook is the only social network in India that has witnessed a tremendous growth, almost doubling its users in the last 6 months. 7) Highest number of active social media audience in India are in the age group of 15-24 and are graduates who are looking for a Job or planning further studies. 8) The maximum users come from the less than 2 lakhs p.a. income category. This is because social networks are primarily driven by the youth. 9) More than 45% of the users on Social Networks return during the day. Facebook tops the list with users re-visiting more than 3 times during a day. 10) Majority of the time spent by the Indian audience on Facebook is on Interactive Games/Applications and then on viewing [4].

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II) To determine the criteria for successful advertising in social networking medium Even though social networking sites are growing at a faster rate but the advertising in social networking sites didnt achieve the greater potential. It is inferred from our survey that in order to make social networking an effective tool for advertising medium, several criteria need to be followed. 1. Age group filtering. 2. Enlightening ads in celebrities pages. 3. Attracting user towards their motive. 4. Seasonal Ads 5. Best Use of Calligraphy. 6. Where and What to Advertise? 7. Acquaintance about the cost for advertising in Social Networking sites. 8. Appearance of the site and advertisements. 9. Time Slots.

Statistical Report Of 80 Peoples Which Infers The Above Criterias Are As Follows: AGE GROUP FILTERING Based on the registration details which the users provide during their registration we can group them according to their age. With these data we can optimize them into several groups. Similarly we have to classify the ads according to the age groups. Considering age group filtering also filter the advertisements based on his likes for a particular advertisement on his previous visit.

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Generally users need varies from person to person. By understanding their needs according to their age groups and by delivering the right content to them by this method of age filtering will augment the reach of an advertisement. ENLIGHTENING ADS IN CELEBRITIES PAGE -TWITTER As per the no of followers for every celebrities, we can increase the advertisements in those pages thereby we can cover more audiences for a product. Twitter ranking of Brands is based on number of followers, while Facebook rank is based on number of FB likes of the brand page. For Indians, Twitter burst into fame due to glamour and celebrity touch associated with it. Moreover, news channels are often found relaying the popular tweets from Bollywood personalities to highlight their viewpoint on debatable issues. Then, again, cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar joining the Twitter bandwagon, also turned attention of millions of fans towards Twitter. Like it or dislike it apart from sporadic attention seeking, Twitter continues to remain an alien to a large majority of Indians, even today [5]. So we insist that it will be more effective if advertisements are displayed in those celebrities page which could increase the number of followers. ATTRACTING USERS TOWARDS THEIR MOTIVES As mentioned earlier, social network websites have empowered users and allowed them to be creative. The technology behind the websites has enabled its users to fully display their unique personalities online. Companies can harness this expression of creativity by engaging the users in the advertising process themselves through social networks. This will give xvii

users a greater sense of involvement with established brands, eventually identifying themselves with the companies. Even if the advertisements do not harness users creativity, they should encourage user participation and involvement in order to develop a closer relationship. Sony was extremely successful with its campaign for 30 Days of Night by just encouraging users to play Vampires and enter the sweepstakes contest, although one way they could have improved on the Campaign would have been to create characters based on the movie to bring the users Closer to the brand. Eg.http://www.quirky.com

SEASONAL ADVERTISEMENTS Seasonal applications with its interest in sports, Movies, tourism etc, with the help of these applications showing in the social networking sites we can stream live scores and information related to the categories mentioned above. Seasonal advertisements include products which will be in demand in various seasons for instance. Advertisements which includes, the introduction of new mobile phones in the market during the start of the summer vacation, reaches the customers and boosts the sales. Classifying the advertising companies based on the demand which differs for different seasons is important for the reach of the advertisements to the customer. Advertisements regarding these products at the right time are necessary for its reach. BEST USE OF CALLIGRAPHY Calligraphy must be used in an advertisement in a way by which the theme of an advertisement is completely delivered to the customer. Font styles and colours used in advertisements should be attractive and spacious which would attract the customers. WHERE AND WHAT TO ADVERTISE? Advertisements which are displayed in a frame in a website must be positioned where there are a large number of activities in a page. The advertisers are ought to understand users interest and his activities in a site and in that position of a page the advertisements are to be displayed.

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ACQUAINTANCE

ABOUT

THE

COST

OF

ADVERTISING

IN

SOCIAL

NETWORKING SITES People think that the charge for advertising in social networking sites is comparatively more than other Social Medias. Social Networking sites must displays their tariffs for advertisements as an advertisement which in turn it reaches the advertisers .As a result of this many organizations come to know about these plans and it will increase the number of advertisements in a social network. At the same time ads in social networking sites must be either zero cost (initial trial plan to know the reach of an advertisement) or cost-effective. APPEARANCE OF THE SITE AND ADS The appearance of the advertisements in social networking sites must not only be attractive but also the color tone of the site and the advertisement is significant for its reach. The advertisements must be catchy and it should be in a way by which the theme of an advertisement is properly conveyed. Many of them do not spend their time on advertisements in these sites and the contents of the advertisement are not properly delivered for those who do. TIME SLOTS The social networks site traffic differs in a day in various times, which means users activity varies in a day. Since users activity varies with time to time, the reach of an advertisement differs in a specific time. New tariff plans based on time slots for advertisements should be introduced by the marketing team of the sites. We have inferred these details from the above survey taken from 80 members who are accessing social networking sites in these time slots.

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Each time slots indicates the number of active users in social networking sites in a day. 6 am to 12pm -3.75% 12 pm to 6pm -13.75% 6 pm to 12 am -70% 12 am to 6 am - 5% Not using 7.5% INFERENCE AND FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS A company will not be able to make enough revenue if its product introduced into the market fails to reach the customer properly. Likewise if an advertisement in a website is unable to convey the actual Intel to the user then the need for an advertisement is not fulfilled. Our survey dealt with all the present problems and also the necessary changes which have to be made for the inevitability the advertisement should have for its reach. By implementing all the proposed methods in the present advertising system the marketing potential for the advertising product will be on the mount. Future enhancement in advertisements should be lively using flash contents which will eventually leads to next state of promoting a product. xx

BIBLIOGRAPHY [1]. Advertising on Social Networking Websites by Professor Yoram Wind and Mrinal Todi, University of Pennsylvania. [2]. http://www.themobileindian.com/news/1305_42%25-users-in-India-accessFacebook-on-mobile:-Survey [3]. http://www.wikipedia.org [4]. http://www.watconsult.com/2011/01/social-media-in-india-statistics-and-insights/ [5]. http://trak.in/tags/business/2010/09/15/top-indian-brands-social-media-twitterfacebook/

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