Social networking sites are the key to engage today's users, especially the youth. Over the years, there has been a shift from the use of traditional media to social media. Some of the popular social networking sites are Twitter, hi5, Orkut, Facebook (FB), etc. Among all these, Facebook is the most popular site. This article describes how Facebook can serve as an effective marketing tool for the advertisers.

Over the past few years, Social Networking Sites (SNS) have emerged as huge platforms for young entrepreneurs, companies and consultants to discuss their ideas and provide information about their products and brands. These sites give the marketers an opportunity to get feedback on their product and brand instantly. However, advertising on Facebook (FB)is different from traditional advertising. Analyzing the demographics of the users is very important in case of advertising on FB. It has been estimated that Internet users worldwide spend about five and a half hours a month on social networking sites like FB and Twitter. The 2009 data of AC Nielsen revealed that there was a 82% increase in the usage of social networking sites in the year 2009 as compared to the same in the previous year.

FB has around 500 million users and is hugely popular among the youngsters. The youth consider this site to be very `cool' and exciting as it helps them to connect with their friends and with others who work, study and live around them. It is ranked very high among this group of target audience. Advertisers need to understand how to reach these users and convert them to their customers. Having realized the potential of FB, advertisers are even designing their media mix in such a way so as to give the maximum weightage to FB. Even in the FB sites, the designs have been created in such a way that the focus is on the advertisements.

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