Respond to the following the discussion questions answers.

1. There seems to be a growing interest in the use of social media for B2B marketing. This new method is considered to be a vehicle for soft marketing through relationship and brand development, rather than a hard-sell method (Brennan & Croft, 2012). Do you think that a soft marketing approach is better than a hard marketing approach? What are some significant differences between them both? What potential problems do you see arising in either of these approaches? What are your thoughts on this?

2. Social media is taking over our lives these days. Most people have some type of social media on their phone or computer, whether that is Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Because of the extensive amount of users on social media, it would definitely be a good idea to use marketing. I have already seen this in my life with my friends, especially on instagram. Business are able to market their products or services over Instagram to other businesses and customers. In most cases, the overall volume of B2B (business-to-business) transactions is much higher than the volume of Business to customer transactions (Shelly, 2011). Another example of how marketing can work through social media involving business to business is allowing social media platforms to use advertisements from other businesses. Facebook does this by allowing other businesses to make a business page and allow customers to view that page to learn more about that business. In return, Facebook gets a paid by that business to make a business page. In the Marketplace Live simulation, social media can be used to to target certain places where potential businesses might be looking at. The goal of business to business marketing is to gain exposure. Social media is the best and easiest way for companies to gain exposure and to market their products. Additionally, American Express uses social media to allow their customers to discuss their experience and services with other current or potential customers. 

3. There are many advantages and disadvantages to using social media to market a business. One disadvantage (risk) you may have when marketing in social media is perspective of customers or may be noncustomers. Due to the fact that social media gives everyone an option to give an opinion not all opinions are based on facts and not all opinions are going to have the companies' best intentions in mind. Bad reviews can lead your company down the wrong path. Another disadvantage of social media is the fact that you have to have the right marketing tools in place to market. People can market independently but they would have to have the right audience to market to. For example if someone does not have many friends on social media, them attempting to market a product would be pointless because the audience would be limited. I think having a bigger online presence for a company helps for them to market a product and also having a recognizable name is not a bad way to start off as well.

There are many advantages of using social media to sell computers to business customers. One of the advantages is the positive feedback from another business who has bought a computer. This give other companies the ability to see that your company has reputable products. Another advantage of using social media is getting the name of your company out there without having to really do too much. In social media word of mouth (repost) can help to really spread the word about a business faster than normal. According to Kotler & Keller (2016), using social media is also a way to collect marketing intelligence which may help in positioning/ repositioning a product.

4. Social media is a great way to market a product or company. It is the best way to advertise for startup businesses. Since mostly everyone in the world with a laptop or phone has social media, it is the best way to get your friends to check out a product or service. However, since most companies are using social media as a way to market, how does one stand out from the others? It is one thing to have a product that no one else has ever heard of and that would sell lots of products, but you have to find the best way to market that product and most people may use social media. The pros of using Facebook would be creating a page where facebook users can look up your company and see the culture through the pictures and posts from the company. Facebook will be able to create advertisements and gain interest from targeted markets that will want to buy our products in the Marketplace Live simulation. One advantage using social media as a way to sell computers would be to target specific markets from the people who visited our Facebook page. Media selection is finding the most cost-effective media to deliver the desired number and type of exposures to the target audience. (Kotler,2016). Facebook can track who visits what website and we can use this information to target similar markets. Another example of a way that social media can help sell computers would be that it is easier for companies to advertise their products through social media rather than word of mouth. A con that might come up when selling computers and using social media would be the quick negative reviews that customers can post right away after a poor experience. Another example would be that it is what every other organization is doing so what makes this company or product any different?