Social media marketing : challenges and opportunities

Thesis: S.M. in Management Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2015.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Vita.Includes bibliographical references (pages 72-78).Over the last few years, we have seen a rapid growth in social media space that is largely due to the fast growing number of internet users and network platforms all over the world. As more and more people start using the internet, they in time start connecting with one another via various social media platforms some of the largest being Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Social media provide potential opportunities for the marketers to connect with a large audience in real time. Here, customers and companies can communicate with each other with no time lag and without any third party intervention. Consequently, these companies can benefit from much deeper customer interactions, relationships and insights. However to benefit from social media the marketers need to overcome several challenges. In my present research, I have tried to address some of the key issues that surround businesses and marketers today while dealing with social media marketing. For example: How to build an effective social media strategy? What are some of the frameworks and tools that can be utilized in the process? How to measure ROI on social media? Keywords: social media, social media marketing, marketers, the internet, platforms, social networks, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln, YouTube, Google.by Gunjan Paliwal.S.M. in Management Researc