MANJUSHREE ADHIKARI,

KATHMANDU.

With the growing popularity of social media globally, these social networking sites (SNS) have emerged as one of the major tools for marketing. Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn are proved to be effective media for advertisements as billions of users surf these sites on a daily basis. Be it advertisements of products or services, social media shares a huge chunk of advertisement world globally. Nepali advertisement industry is not an expectation. Today, many Nepali companies are also following the suit by placing their advertisement on these sites.

With the strong hold of social networking sites over a huge mass globally, it has become an effective media for the companies to advertise their products and services. The advertisements on social media can be monitored and controlled. Moreover, it can narrow down the targeted group based on geography, age, education, interests and businesses, which makes it is easy to reach out to the targeted audience. Hence, most companies are found to have also created their company accounts and pages in these sites so that they can directly interact with their potential customers and clientele.

Placing an advertisement on social media are very cost-effective as it reduces the advertising expenses by up to 50 per cent,” shares Manoj Chandi Shrestha, Founder of Housing Nepal Pvt Ltd, adding that it also helps audience to recall the existence of older brands. “Today, the existing trend shows most of the Nepali companies are advertising through their FB Pages as it has more users than any other social media,” he opines.

With a view to connect and interact with its potential customers efficiently, Housing Nepal had launched its FB Page Housingnepal.com in mid 2010. He informs that more than 60 per cent of its Facebook Page likes are from Nepal while rest of them are from Qatar, Doha and other gulf countries.

“The FB Page has worked wonders to be more closer and have frequent interactions with our clients,” he shares, adding that it has also helped to facilitate the company to win the trust of customers through one to one interactions.

“Social media advertisements have been proved to be effective as the targeted audiences are largely engaged with these media,” informs Bharat Lal Nyachhyon, Executive Director at Advertising Association of Nepal. Citing that social media marketing has been gaining quite a momentum in Nepal, he says, “Interacting with customers through social media helps develop a strong bond between the brand and its customers.” According to him, it has become very convenient to carry out marketing solutions of much impact with less effort through social media. “Advertising on social media has opened new avenues for emerging companies to promote their products and services among potential clientele,” he says.