Advertising strategies changing with social media: Methods of determining the target audience in social media

In recent years, social media platforms have become very popular applications with the developments in mobile communication and internet technologies. Social media platforms are the new digital communication tools used by quite a large audience. The rapidly increasing number of users has made these new digital platforms a valuable advertising tool. Social media platforms, which are quite different from traditional advertising media, have also changed and transformed advertising applications. One of the most important innovations that social media brings to the advertising field is targeted advertisements. In this context, the aim of this study is to present the changing advertising practices with social media and the methods used in the target audience determination process in social media. In the first part of the study, the concept of advertising is discussed and traditional advertising practices are mentioned. In the second part of the study, social media concept is discussed and explained how social media is used as advertising medium. In the third part of the study, target audience determination methods used in social media platforms are examined by sector based. In line with this, semi-structured questionnaires were conducted to the experts in the field of digital advertising agencies.