Informative

History of Social Media Marketing

Eli Hernandez, Staff Reporter • March 20, 2025

Introduction

Social media marketing has improved the ways businesses communicate with customers globally and has become an indispensable tool for marketers to build brand awareness.

What is social media marketing

Social media marketing is using social media platforms to connect with a target audience, build brand awareness, promote products or services, and drive website traffic by creating and sharing engaging content.

Early forms of social media marketing

Before Facebook, social media marketing was focused around the platforms, MySpace, Friendster, and LiveJournal. Platforms had smaller user bases making it difficult for businesses to reach out to their audience. These platforms only offered basic features like profile creation and the ability to post updates. Businesses were still exploring the potential of social media marketing and how they could best utilize the platforms.

How social media marketing became widely used

Social media marketing began to become widely used after the launch of Facebook in 2004. The launch of Facebook is considered to be a turning point as it provided a platform with a large user base and advanced targeting strategies, allowing for better marketing strategies. Businesses started to become more focused on creating more awareness by relying on engaging content, likes, comments, and shares to spread awareness. Facebook also provided tools for monitoring conversations about a brand, allowing for businesses to understand their customers better.

Paid ads on social media

Social media platforms started adding paid ads around 2006 with the first major platform being Facebook to introduce them, initially in the form of banner ads similar to the ones we see today. This was a good monetization strategy, which allowed social media platforms to generate revenue while providing businesses a way to reach out to their target audience.

E-commerce integration

E-commerce integration began in 2007 with Facebook being the first to experiment with social commerce, allowing users to buy products directly through the platform. This became more widely available in the mid-2010s with platforms like Instagram adding shoppable posts and checkout features.

An example of what an E-commerce page may look like.

Conclusion

In conclusion, social media marketing has improved significantly to improve business strategies. As platforms grew, so did marketing tactics from basic posts to targeted ads and influencer campaigns.

Works Cited:

Gatto, E. (2021, October 22). The evolution of Social Commerce and why it’s here to stay. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/evolution-social-commerce-why-its-here-stay-elio-gatto#:~:text=How%20did%20social%20commerce%20start,%2Dfriendly%20check%2Dout%20feature
WordPress, 2U. (2024, April 24). The evolution of social media: How did it begin, and where could it go next?. Maryville University Online. https://online.maryville.edu/blog/evolution-social-media/#:~:text=Facebook%20began%20to%20place%20ads,Twitter%20enabled%20ads%20in%202010

Donate to The Tiger

Your donation will support the student journalists of Elmwood Park High School. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment and cover our annual website hosting costs.

About the Contributor

Eli Hernandez, Staff Reporter

Hi! My name is Eli Hernandez. I am a freshman at Elmwood Park High School, and this is my first year writing for The Tiger. Outside of school, I enjoy playing video games. For my future career, I plan to become an entrepreneur and create my own business.