Midterm Review – Advertising: Eyeballs for Access

            Millions of users log into Facebook, Twitter and various other social media and networking sites daily, from around the world without paying a dime for these services. Very few actually stop and think how they get access to these sites 24/7 completely free to them. Instead, they rely on them to post pictures, talk to friends, etc., without a glitch. The big question is then how do these sites have the money to produce a site that people rely very heavily on to perform at or above par? The answer is through marketing. The social media and other networking spaces allow their users to use their sites for free because of the advertising space that they sell. Because so many people are on their websites a day, they create eyeballs, through their users, to see the various companies advertisements posted on the websites. For example, when one logs into Facebook, there are various companies that have advertisement postings. Because these sites have so many users, it enables more people to see these advertisements, and in turn, more people to click on the advertisement and hopefully purchase their good or service. Through this click on the advertisement Facebook, or the other various networking sites, produce revenue. Therefore, the company gets more eyeballs, the social networking sites make money through advertisement space; and thus, these sites are able to offer their websites 24/7 to their millions of users worldwide at no cost.