Social media is the internet sites that cater to users to interact and exchange comments, ideas and setting in a social environment.  The user of the social media is not just searching for relevant information, but is searching for output in reference to a product, a service, or the item of interest that can result in an opinion or a comment.  The social media is driven by Web 2.0 technology that has the widgets and gadgets in place to produce a social setting for the exchange of comments.

Social media that is most common to internet users are FaceBook, Tweeter, and MySpace.  MySpace has been revamping its social media to keep up with the worldly popular Tweeter and the hugeness of Chris Hughes FaceBook.  Tweeter has been credited with connecting people who needed help in various situations because of the ease in which to join which is free and the sheer number of users.  Tweeter as yet to monetize greatly on its social capabilities as the $100 billion and still growing Google Search Engine.

Social media in regards to businesses is like the icing on a cake when it comes to getting feedback on how to increase business by simply reading comments and opinions of consumers on the social media of FaceBook, Tweeter, and MySpace.  Because of the recession, businesses needs to know what the consumer will buy and at what price.  This information can easily be gathered by using web analytics at the online business website or reading and responding to users of the product or service online at one of the three social networking media websites.

The businesses can use in there analytics in regards to social media the number of blog posts, the number of tweets, the number of links and most of all the number of commens to their business results after posting advertisements on social media networks.  Many of these businesses have web analytics in place to sort the user’s numbers in the appropriate marketing category to analyze how the business is performing online with the social media advertising.  Businesses can check how their brand is performing by using web analytics in conjunction with the interactions of their brand on the social media network sites.  As consumers, in their comments, will often compare products, the business can easily access how the competition is performing as to strategize their marketing efforts to be optimal in achieving profits and sustainability.

With social media interactions, the business can get to understand the indifferent consumer about the usage of their brand.  The consumer is transparent when writing comments about the brand and without a survey of preexisting questions can comment about the product as it relates to them.  The relationship with a brand is not aways favorable and the businesses should be listening to the dissatisfied or negative comments because that way they can improve to bring in more business.   This procedure is called text analytics and will be viewed by marketers to optimize the sustainability of their bottom line which is to increase profits and sales.

The business needs to look at what social media is producing the most result in regards to comments about their brand or service.  The business should direct more of their advertising efforts to the social media that is bringing in the most comments regardless of whether the comments are positive or negative.  Although to improve on performance, the marketing strategize will more often than not listen to the social media that brings in the negative comments because that is where the improvement base will emerge.  If the business if using Twitter as the social media of choice, simply analyzing the number of followers speak hugely of the popularity of the brand, product or service.  Businesses should not only read these comments but should actively engage in the dialogue just as a salesman would.   Businesses should not be watchdogs and merely looking to see the web analytics, but should get the consumers to open up more about their opinions and questions by questioning opinions and actively following up on the consumer concerns.

Social media is no more the site where people engage in a conversation just to know what kind of toothpaste you use or what are you doing at the time of the post.  Social media is becoming big business and an enormous marketing tool that if used smartly can enhance a business bottom line and sustain the business for the long term  with customer loyalty.