Social Media has become an increasingly more popular way for companies to channel advertisements. As many people now find it simple to take quick surveys online, shop, apply for jobs, etc social media is a great way to gain insight on those customers. I love the way amazon.com and e-bay are able to advertise on social media websites and after getting a click through their advertisement can monitor a customer’s interest based on how they navigate the sight.

As an avid Facebook.com user I can easily relate to the customer experience when companies are throwing advertisements at you. Based on previous click-throughs, facebook has been able to cater advertisements to what the user is interested in, very similar to what amazon.com has also implemented. Facebook has always offered banner advertisements but now they have other ways companies can gain insight into their users lifestyle. A recent option of Facebook now allows you to become a “fan” a certain Facebook pages. Companies that have Facebook users become a fan of their page can really use this to their advantage to gain customer insight but also to create an experience for the user. For example, I am a fan of BlackBerry and through this page I get notifications when BlackBerry does something new. The most recent notification I received informed me that BlackBerry has come out with a new app and then it leads me through the steps to download that application.

The Google sites are extremely helpful in researching a topic or brand. Because I am familiar with the advertising BlackBerry uses on Facebook that is what I researched on the Google websites. I found that on the blogsearch.google.com site there are several websites whose tagline mentions some form of deal when purchasing a BlackBerry. Several also were tailored to the applications that BlackBerry is adding to their devices. Using this site I found a lot of user generated content, a lot more opinions from tech websites. On the zeitgeist page I used the “insights for search” option and found a lot of hard facts about the popularity of blackberry as well as the different products offered. This site would be helpful in determining the target market for BlackBerry users.