#SocialSeen Never underestimate the power of Social Media.

Forbes recently reported that in 2014 brands will realise that Social Media as part of their business plan will be a necessity not a Luxury which comes as no surprise as since the launch of Facebook in 2004 and Twitter in 2006, social media has become a powerful tool for businesses, brands and celebrities. YouTube has become more effective than any TV network to reach 18-25 year olds and Instagram the three year old photo sharing app is taking over the world.

Here’s some of my favourite brands that use Social Media to maximise their potential.

@Caradelevinge the 2012 British Model of The Year and cover star of last months Vogue magazine who they state is ‘the model who was liked in to super stardom.’ In the past year she’s become a model phenomenon and used social media to express her self proclaimed weird personality, allowing her to be unique and break the mould of the straight faced, pouty modelling world. With her growing 3.2 million Instagram fan base, 1,269,932 followers on Twitter and 18,015 likes on her Facebook fanpage Cara is definitely using social media to her advantage.

@amazon have created a rainforest sized fan base on Facebook with over 17 million fans. They credit their success to engaging with their fans with interesting questions and visual content that links the fans directly to relevant products to their website. A clever strategy they have developed to turn fans in to buyers.

And last but not least on 13th of December 2013 the Queen of pop @Beyonce released her fifth album exclusively on iTunes, skipping the usual promotional marketing and trusting the power of social media. Releasing a 15 second video on Instagram @Beyonce sparked a music revolution and in just three days her album had sold 828,773 copies and five days later had sold more than one million copies. In the 24 hours after the album release 1.2 million people tweeted about it and has since become iTunes’ fastest selling album. The video features @Beyonce expressing ‘I just want this to come out from me to my fans, so much music gets diluted.’ I think @Beyonce got her wish as the video received 5,642,56 likes on Instagram and 323,987 likes and 70,329 shares on Facebook in a week.