Social Media AdvertisingIntroductionAdvertising strategies have evolved significantly over the past decade. Social media advertising has taken the marketing world by storm. A significant percentage of consumers now have access to some form of social media account and businesses have begun to use this to their advantage. Social media has made the Internet a virtual hotspot for advertising products, services, businesses, restaurants, etc. Although advertising through social media is relatively new in the world of marketing, it has brought huge success to businesses. With this success comes certain risks and opportunities for failure. There are many pros and cons to using social media as an advertising platform. This form of advertising can help increase awareness of company brands and increase revenue if used correctly. Social media also provides tools that can be used to determine the success of an advertisement. If used incorrectly, a company's reputation could be at stake and it could potentially lose a lot of loyal customers. Benefits of Social Media Advertising Businesses have discovered that there are several benefits to using social media networks to advertise what they are selling. Like all advertising strategies, the main benefit of social media advertising is a potential increase in revenue. Another great advantage of using this advertising platform is that businesses are now able to reach a significant number of consumers without much effort. An example of this would be a company posting a tweet about a product on Twitter. Not only is this tweet seen directly by all of the company's followers, but the ad can be retweeted countless ...... middle of paper ...... therefore. Later in the document, we will look in more depth at the importance of effective communication. Businesses will also need to keep their social media accounts up to date. Customers will lose interest in a brand if they never post anything new to their accounts. A company's social media page should also "have a clear voice and direction" (Sutton, 2). Customers should be able to easily navigate a company's social media page and be able to get the information they need. Companies should also refrain from disclosing too much information about a customer at once. Social media ads should be progressive and well thought out. Creativity is also an important factor that determines the success of a social media advertisement. Businesses can interweave promotional activities into their advertisements to hold a customer's attention..