The Effects of "Pay-to-Play" on Social Media Marketing

With today's generation becoming more and more reliant on technology, the use of social media has skyrocketed. The best way for businesses to reach Internet users, therefore, is becoming the use of advertisements through social media. This, however, must be done carefully; Facebook's recent method of featuring what they assume to be relevant ads and endorsements in users' news feeds has been getting out of hand. From a personal standpoint, the advertisements featured and suggested on my news feed are more of a bother and, for the most part, unappealing to my interests. However, this could be due to the fact that I have not been actively "liking" pages in the last few years. Facebook is trying to catch my interest without knowing how best to appeal to me. News has recently been released of Twitter possibly doing something similar. Again, this method of advertising must be approached with precaution; brands want to make themselves known to customers but not in a way that seems obnoxious.
To be honest, it is not surprising that pay-to-play methods of advertising are starting to be an issue as mentioned in the article, "Pay to play: the end of free social media marketing?". If brands are using social media sites as a vehicle for advertising, it only seems fair that the sites themselves should benefit more from any resulting transactions. Personally, I do not think the pay-to-play will slow all social media marketing. However, I do think some smaller brands might not be able to keep up with the costs. Referring to the comment of Super Bowl television ads now costing astronomical amounts of money, only well-known brands with a strong consumer base will be able to both afford and profit from spending so much on advertising. The competition will instead be reduced to a few of the top brands who will then take over most of the advertising. For instance, when one thinks of car commercials, often the first thing that comes to mind is either Ford or Chevrolet. Fast food? McDonald's, Burger King, or Subway. Retail? Wal-Mart or Target. Therefore, having such a strong hold on consumers will make social media marketing easier; advertising is basically a "survival of the fittest" that only the strongest competitors will endure. Frustrating as it may be, the pay-to-play strategy will also be beneficial to the brands that can afford it. Social media is currently the best way to engage consumers, so paying to advertise to these consumers so directly will be profitable in the long run.

The following article discusses Twitter's "buy" button.Taking advertising one step further and allowing users to directly buy an item definitely has a convenience factor that could appeal to many. However, this step might be one too far, and whether or not it will take off remains uncertain.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/237684