“Facebook . . . A New Marketing Tool for Generation Y”

Almost all of us are on facebook now and most of us addicted . . . fortunately or unfortunately. This addiction could have some negative consequences as well, though such chances almost diminish for marketing students who often find it useful for persuasive advertising and creating awareness regarding some new course project. Similarly, with everything going online, facebook is aggressively being used for project and exam reminders by students through cheerful and upset status updates, while school notice boards are hardly paid heed to these days . . . Well, the most resplendent notices to attract attention are those displayed in ‘Red’ which again is an orthodox way of paving way to negative reinforcement. But does that mean students would discontinue their orthodox ways of being notorious? I guess not . . . Education or discipline might not modify a person at all.

Other than putting up banners on campus, marketing students prefer ‘haunting’ profiles through high doses of event reminders throughout the day which again is a good thing in terms of creating brand familiarity if  not brand conviction because in order to have established the latter aspect of a brand it needs to have existed in the market for quite sometime to gain maturity. Furthermore, students replace their own pictures with the main project or event poster and all you have on your profile is . . . well . . . ‘hauntings’ again till the day it actually gets executed. One of the many benefits that can be availed is making your facebook friends know by heart the nature of the project and it’s execution date, even those who are bad at remembering dates would know, no matter how inefficient they were at ‘Pakistan Studies’ or History in school. Some of such students feel no shame flaunting off their ‘not so good grade’ for a parrot fashion learning subject but now Facebook is here to embed event dates in there Hippocampus (part of brain responsible for memory retention and storage) and it sure won’t be erased.

In the wake of such happenings on Facebook and at school, memory retention is profound to the extent of even making us dream about peer events and it really does happen. Halfway through the semester we start getting nightmares related to our and other class’s events and at times the teaching who has been teaching that particular course. Therefore, there is no way this marketing stance is weak at all, as long as there is Facebook, persuasive and aggressive advertising shall prevail.

Moreover, you would know that your Facebook addiction is getting stronger and stronger when everything you think and see becomes your status update and at times excruciating for friends . .  .  also when your mom thinks you have been working when all that time you had been logged on to facebook sharing videos, poking friends and commenting on their statuses . . .

In a business school what some might call ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ is something that could more precisely be coined as ‘peer respect’, that is, it becomes a give and take situation when students attend each others events or make sure they are participating in each other’s projects. It’s a matter of straight rebuy or something that could most readily be related to habitual buying behaviour to survive through our marketing courses. Ironically, these  courses often revolve around selling tickets only and during some instances an entire  gang of students gets together at entrances to surround others and sell the tickets somehow or the other, here Facebook might not be of much help, physical presence is.  However, while recalling marketing and Facebook together, those not related to the project end up surrendering to posts and start endorsing it themselves to further facilitate word of mouth or buzz marketing. . .

Having participated in marketing projects also reveals yours and the other person’s inner self and true potential . . . if you learn something in a business school that would be recognising people and personalities, something Facebook might not be of much help for. It’s marketing that teaches alot for your way ahead in the corporate world . . .

Tags: addiction, Facebook, Gen Y, Marketing, status updates, students, tool

Category: Marketing