You’re scrolling through your Instagram feed and see a picture of an espresso drink with the geo-tag, “New York City’s Two Hands.” The drink looks so good and you decide to “like” and tag your friends. Without even realizing it, you are marketing the restaurant.

With the new trend of social media, marketing has taken a global shift. Instead of spending big bucks on ads and TV commercials, businesses are now taking advantage of our generation’s new means of communication. According to Business Insider, big corporations such as Ford spend an average of 3.9 billion (yes, billion!) dollars in advertising. However, with social media, companies will now tweet and rely on us to promote their products by liking, following, re-tweeting and tagging. YouTube channels are a great example of this. Companies find popular channels whose viewers are their target markets. They will then pay the YouTuber to promote their product whether it is makeup, food, laptop or bike. Next time you watch your favorite Youtube channel, pay attention to how they talk highly of a product. Chances are they are marketing the product and making endorsements. It is no doubt that social media and popular websites, like Youtube, play a huge role in marketing.