We live in a world where advancements in technology are constantly changing, people are connected to each other almost every waking minute of the day, and our social lives are of the upmost importance. We can look throughout history and see how big business has always found its way into the next great technological advancement, and now is no exception. The sudden burst of social media websites onto the scene has created an avenue for business to target specific and large amounts of people. This literature review will discuss just how companies have altered their marketing ways to keep up with the times in an every growing industry where the competition level is set exceedingly high. It will then narrow down to how different marketing techniques can play as an advantage/disadvantage to consumers as well as the companies that implement these strategies and provide success stories of companies that took advantage of this new age. The name that was basically given to advertising through social media websites is viral marketing. A formal definition of this term would be the tactic of creating a process where interested people can market to each other—is therefore emerging as an important means to spread-the-word and stimulate the trial, adoption, and use of products and services (Subramani, 302). In the grand scheme the ultimate goal for marketers is to create a viral marketing program consisting of many viral messages. They try and make these messages appealing as possible to people that have high social networking potential (SNP). This happens with the hopes that people with high SNP share the message with their social circles that most likely share similar SNP thus creating buzz around a company. It often seems as if viral messages take on a life of their own when pushed my companies being passed around social networking sites for all different reason whether it