Introduction
A decade ago, social media networks were a novelty, but today there is no debate that digital platforms are vital parts of our everyday lives. According to Writing on the Wall: Social Media-The First 2000 Years, social media is defined as “an environment in which information was passed from one person to another along social connections to create a distributed discussion or community” (Standage 2013:3). With this innovative way to distribute ideas and communicate with one another, businesses have realized this tool is not only powerful way to distribute ideas but an effective way to create a community of followers for their brand. According to the 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 86% of marketers states that social media is important for their business and 89% of marketers states that increased exposure was the number one benefit of social media marketing (Stelzner 2013). Due to the massive growth of digital culture, social platform have clearly changed the way marketers promote their brand. Benefits such as increased exposure, increased traffic, developed loyal fans, growth of business partnerships, and improved search rankings give the ability to reach out and communicate on a personal level with their target audience on a daily basis (Bendror 2014). With countless possibilities that social media has afforded, this research aims to explore how social media allows small businesses to accelerate their businesses by turning their followers into customers.
The History of Social Platforms
Numerous scholars have debated that social media did not ‘suddenly appear’ but are an outcomes of a long evolution in information technologies (Verhayden 2013:4). Since the start of capitalism, social marketing has always been a vital part of growing a business. Thousands of years ago, before technology was even a platform, producers and consumers spread ideas through word of mouth and relationship-building. Feudal lords supported the medieval marketplace. This in turn would provide a social hub, drawing in various social groups, from country dwellers to barterers, and provided a place for them to not only trade goods but also hear the latest gossip and news about the community. According to Peter Friedman, the CEO and Social Media Strategist of LiveWorld, “Commerce, and therefore marketing, has always been social--because human beings are social. Businesses thrive by providing them not just with a product or service, but with more of what they crave, the opportunity for meaningful interaction with fellow humans” (Friedman 2014). During the 20th century was when technology began to rapidly develop. With the invention of computers which later led to the Internet, early forms of technological communications began to emerge. In 1997, the first recognizable social media site, Six Degrees was born, which enabled users to upload profile and befriend other users (Hendrinks 2013). As sharing ideas online exploded in popularity, sites like MySpace and LinkedIn began to emerge in the early 2000s and photo sharing platforms such as Photobucket and Flikr began to also popularize. In 2005, YouTube was born and created a new mean for people to connect and share video creations with one another. A year later, Facebook and Twitter went global staying side-by-side on the most used social platform even until today. Soon after 2006, social networking niches began to form encapsulating the emergence of sites like Tumblr, Pinterest, and Foursquare.