These days, most internet users own at least one account in social networking sites. Some may even have multiple accounts. This is why online businesses take this opportunity as a method for promotional activities such as list building. Despite the fact that some online surfers hate receiving messages containing offers from different companies, there are still a number of people who are open to such offers.
An advantage of using social networking sites for list building is that the word about a service or a product spread quickly, especially in Twitter where a trending topic is show at the home page. People who see such topic being discussed heavily on the net will most likely look for more information about it. Marketers who want to put their products and services among the trending topics on Twitter should be creative in doing so. If the message is typed like an offer leading to a site, people will most probably ignore it. Using it with a #term is a more effective approach.
The same thing applies for Facebook. A marketer can post a note or a picture and tag people along so that they can see it.
People spend their time more on social networking sites than on their email in-box. The companies can use the private messaging feature of these social networking sites instead. In addition, adding people to the list of the promoter’s ‘friends’ is easier done on social networking sites, especially on Twitter where one can follow the activities of the other person even without the latter approving the invitation. Private messaging will now be possible unless that person has turned off that particular feature.
