To Be or Not to Be in Social Media Arena as the Most Cost-Efficient Marketing Strategy after the Global Recession

Abstract

The economic recession affects the firms’ marketing strategies as well as consumers’ perceptions and behaviours. During and after recession, marketing function plays a vital role to survive or stay profitable and consumer-responsive. Recently, one of the most distinctive ways the firm lowers its costs is by turning to social media marketing. Promoting brands and other marketing activities through social media doesn’t cost the firm so much then it is widely evaluated as the most convenient instrument to market products to the target segment especially in these difficult times. Social media which allows anybody to become a producer of such content and deliver it through interactive communication in the form of pyramid based on relationship is recognized as the most potentially powerful tool in business practice so marketers are intensively using social media to realize their strategies in a lower cost. This paper is investigating whether firms spend less money via social media to realize their marketing strategies comparing with traditional media as well as the importance of social media for the marketing area.