Introduction
From Baruchnewmedia
The Internet boom provides a costless platform and more flexibility for business environments all over the world. Today, industries in the business environment try to communicate by maintaining a very close relationship with their customers through the introduction of new media technology. Every business is using different new media techniques to target their customers. Coca-Cola and Burger King are offering enticing invitations to join online social networks and play games, delivering to consumers a brand experience that may be more memorable than the actual products.
Burger King has its own page on MySpace.com. On their page, they promote advertisements, history, and songs. When you look their MySpace page, the target audience are adults. Burger King pursues a good strategy of targeting adults, so they created a page on MySpace where millions and millions of adults visit every month. It is a good advertising method as oppposed to paying for a big billboard or opting to hand out fliers. In terms of how this strategy improves business...if Burger King wants to introduce a new product they can ask their audience to try it and give feedback before they introduce the product to the market. It saves lot of money for Burger King. Also Burger King creates a Kids Club to target kids under 12, thanks to development in Web 2.0 technology(http://www.bk.com/ironman/index.html).
Coca-Cola also uses the same technique to target adult audiences (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=4122690). According to Business Week, “Coke created a site (mycoke.com) where consumers can play games and socialize. It is a virtual room where consumers can set up their own chat rooms and even create a personal space and decorate it. The only catch is they must drink Coke to receive a number, printed under the cap, which translates into "cash" that players can spend on the site. Again, branders are trying to create an experience for the consumer, but also give consumers a place to meet and interact with friends”. Some businesses are targeting their audience by e-news, blogs, or RSS. For example: if you take Best Buy, customers have an option to receive new product updates by signing RSS techniques. Overall, there is lot of reason to use new media for business, but most importantly they use new media to target their audiences. Companies also use new media to advertise their product which is cheaper and they also utilize new media to get feedback regarding their product from their audiences. Business industries use lot of new media tool kits to promote their product. For an example: Blogs, RSS, E-news, and social networking sites. Most companies use social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook to target adult audiences. Fast food companies target their customers by MySpace and Facebook for their adult customers and they target children by creating online video gaming techniques. Technology and pharmacy companies target their audiences by E-newsletters and RSS techniques. New media from a business perspective proves to be efficient because the technology is cheap, profitable, and allows for flexibililty.
SHAN
The new media is the new virgin territory for marketers. The current structure of the space has new media providers with a very close link to their audience. This makes it a great area for capable marketers to reach targeted audiences. The current players in "old media" used to be in the same position. Over time, growth and consolidation, their reach has grown at the expense of audience connection and precision, decreasing their utility for targeted marketing campaigns.
The technology base of most new media forms allow for a company to be both large and focused at the same time. One example is Weblogs Inc. where one company controls many focused blogs. Advertising can be managed centrally, but advertisers can select the avenues that have the right audience for them. Other examples are the Twit network, the Blubrry podcast network or Revision 3 which host multiple specialty shows under the one banner brand.
The use of new media has increased companies' relationships with their new and existing customers, by evolving businesses and marketers with their changing audience of consumers by translating their current strategies into strategies that embrace Social Computing. Companies are inviting the customer to use tools such as search, e-mail, blogs, smart point of sale (POS) and intranets. The result is insightful user-generated content and peer-to-peer networks that provide buzz and drive the pace of innovation.
As a result, individuals move beyond basic needs to explicit needs that promote company goals to maintain innovation of products and services, in this manner pushing individual experience to center stage. Concept stores by Sony and Gucci, B2C audio experiences such as Apple iPod/iTunes, as well as B2B network experiences such as Microsoft Channel 9 are examples of companies treating consumers well by offering them desired experiences.
Edited by: Mkomal 19:24, 12 May 2008 (CDT)
There is an interesting word for New Media from CEOs’ and business professionals, which you can see it from the following links.
As people come to grasp with our current economic down turn, it has become the focal point of the current presidential election. As a result, the people have flocked to the senator elected from Chicago, Barack Obama, due his ability to recongize the troubles in the stock market and being the first candidate to speak openly about how to combat future economic troubles from wall street to main street. However, long before the economic crisis celebrities from all facit of enteraintment have gathered and showed their support for Barack Obama. One of the first celebrities to openly endorse Obama was Oprah. Consequently, Oprah has tooken alot of backlash for her endorse, due to it being her first time endorsing a political candidate; yet,alot of the backlash stemmed from the timing of her endorsement, her support was publicized during democratic presidential election. People thought she should of supported Hilary Clinton because of Oprah's relationship with the Clintons' and Because Mrs. Clinton was a woman. Also, the outrage rooted from her influence on her audience, being mostly woman and swaying there vote away from Hilary and other candidates, alike.
*Back to How the New Media are Used in Business
The Role of YouTube in the Entertainment Industry
YouTube has turned out into a very big player in the entertainment section. Since its' creation in 2005 by former PayPal employees Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, YouTube transformed from a regular video sharing website to an "entertainment destination". This website has attracted millions of Internet users because of the variety of videos that people upload everyday. Some of the categories offered in the website are Music, News and Politics, People and Blogs, Sports, Science and Technology, Gaming, Howto & Style, and Entertainment. Google caught on the popularity of this video sharing website and bought it for an outstanding $1.65 billion, and as written by an article on MSNBC, "by far the most expensive purchase made by Google during its eight-year history." One reason why YouTube has become popular in the entertainment field is because it offers a huge amount of free music videos, TV shows, and movies.
