Transformation of Small Business Marketing

What Is The Impact Of Social Media On Small Business Marketing?

Social media has changed the way for business communication as it made communication easy by making use of modern technology. Effective communication with customers helps an organisation to work smoothly. The way of communication has been altered from last 20 years due to the innovation in technology. In 21^st century communication relies completely on internet and that has increased the overall traffic and profit to the business. In the traditional communication method people were not aware about the advanced technologies that enabled them use of online payments and remote communication (Niedermeier, Wang and Zhang, 2016). In today’s scenario every individual is dependent on social media for communication.

Modern technologies have changed the way of communication from last few years as it provides faster feedback, internet facility, social media, and online transactions and provides numerous ways to get customers to the business. In the19 century business messages use to reach to the audience using magazines, phone calls and TV (Lupton, 2015). Apart from that in 19^th century only few ways were provided to give a feedback regarding any concern. The ways to provide feedback changed in last 20s as communication has become flexible and socialized.  This has become possible due to use of internet which has empowered small businesses to grow in the market place (Stelzner, 2014).  Communication has become flexible and can happen in back and forth manner. This has helped business to expand their communication as social media provides a way to get connected 24/7 with the customers and provide feedback instantly (Rodriguez, Peterson and Ajjan, 2015). It has impacted the business by enlarging the business network and brining more audience to the business. The business processes are managed electronically that helps the business to work efficiently (Rolls, et. al, 2016). There are several companies which have started online business and sell few products online. For example take the case of Amazon that allows customers to have quick glance of all the services, this is possible due to social media platform. Additionally, it has offered a user friendly platform to customers so that they can raise their query regarding any concern and get immediate feedback. This helps in enhancing customer’s loyalty and satisfaction (Lacoste, 2016).  Customer satisfaction is the most important point for a business as it helps the business to run smoothly. In case of Amazon it analysis the feedback given by customer so that proper modification can be done and query could be resolved. The reason of success of amazon is social media, as it allow owner to sell their products and services by promoting them (Knox, 2016).  Thus in turn it helps in improving the profit revenue of the business.

Benefits of Social Media in Small Business Marketing

Business communication is very important part for every organisation to work smoothly as it helps the organisation to work effectively by organising campaigns and building inter-personal relationship among the employees (Slideshare, 2017). Social media helps in business communication as it allows the owner to focus on the external market. In the research it was found that business communication is effective as it is a two way cycle. In the example of Amazon admin can message to customers’ and customers can revert to them by providing them feedback. It is a two way process which helps business to communicate easily. Social media is used to promote the product which can be done through advertisement, email, text messages ad auto responders. Business communication is generally used to reach to end users by showcasing their products and services (Inversini and Masiero, 2014). Business communication is used to connect to other business like amazon is a retail company which use various methods to connect to other retail companies. Amazon use social media to get more customers, post special offers and perform online transactions. Effective business communication helps in development of an organisation as it helps in improving the drawbacks by working on the feedback. Effective communication helps an organisation to know the interest of employees in a better way so that decisions could be made accordingly. Communication helps the business to get socialized; this could be done by handling the plan in an appropriate way. It helps in communicating with the employees in remote zones, as international companies have offices in various counties, so to connect with them social media is used. It provides a clear communication so that employees can easily communicate with each other (Eslit, 2018). It helps in reducing the uncertainty as there is a positive business environment that motivates the business to expand more. Social media has been communication which has helped employees to work productively. It has provided an easy way to communicate and avoid the chances of miss-communication. It allows the information to be accessible from anywhere and also keeps the information updated automatically. It has reduced the manual work of promoting the products. Social media is a platform that provides a way for verbal and nonverbal communication. Social media has impacted the business by depicting the entire story using creative methods like advertisement. Similarly, if the management office of the organisation is in different country, then in some cases it is necessary to contact work for some work; social media is the network that has made this communication possible. It is very significant to have active interaction in an organisation as it encourages employees by informing them about their tasks and the enhancement that need to be. It also improves decision making power by analysing the customer’s feedback and taking proper actions. Effective communication can change the business environment by alternating the attitude of employees towards work. It also helps in managing the behaviour of an organisation by designing internal policies of a business.

Improved Communication and Increased Customer Satisfaction

Social media has impacted the way in which modern business operate by providing excellent customer service and helping them to communicate more. Social media has allowed the employees among an organisation to share the information within seconds; previously they use to wait for a long time for replies. It acts like a channel to reach to customers, apart from that they advertise their services through social media platform to evolve more customers. Getting more customers means more profit for the company. Apart from that social media has enhanced the way of communication among business from last few. When organisations connect with the customers using social media platform they help in offering better visualization. In past visualization was limited to only sharing name and logos of the company, but today it help employees to make faster decisions and help customers to know about the brand before buying the product (Argosy university, 2018).  Undoubtedly social media and advanced technology have covered the gap of lack of communication in the business. Communication is crucial part for every business as it as provided a way to keep employees close to each other. It has enhanced the environment of business by improving the connections with customers and keeping them engaged continuously with all the services. Social media has changed the entire scenario from the last years as they have increased the sale of business exponentially. Businesses have got a platform to organise campaigns so that they constantly monitor and track the performance of the brand. Nowadays modern businesses offer more personalized and customized experience to employees. Additionally, social media has allowed the business to be active 24 hours and get engaged round the clock. Taking just a case of, Amazon were customers can post a query during non-working hours and get revert as soon as possible. Thus social media has provided flexibility with time and made the business available to the customers from every zone during all the time.

Social media has helped the business in communicating and making it visible to the world, it is a valuable asset to get more loyal audience and give an opportunity to directly interact with the customers to establish trustworthy connections. Social media have offered various opportunities to the business in the modern world as they help in building their marketing and recruitment strategy. It offers ample of opportunities to business to search for talented employees and monitor the staff by communicating with them (Taneja and Toombs, 2014).  It has various challenges as the information is not protected and can be used by anyone that may critically affect the business. In traditional recruitment process, they used to hire employees by taking face to face interviews but social media is beneficial for company as well as employees as they help in hire employees from anywhere. A company can make a job vacancy by using social media and allow employees to apply for the job by looking at the advertisement. The risk associated with social media is that they do not prevent confidentiality of information and there are chances of leakage of data.

Challenges of Social Media in Small Business Marketing

Additionally, social media has captured 80% of the population and in case of Amazon it has increased its business due to its availability. It provide customer to add feedback that allows future innovation and improvement of product.  It has made communication in business easy by making the information available to customers in any corner within seconds. Various challenges have emerged due to use of social media like cyber bullying, as people misuse social media to spread rumours, share illegal information or destroy the reputation of the company by blackmailing or other means. Apart from that it may create lack of privacy of data and increases the chances of attacks and threats that could be faced by users. The positive impact of social media is distribution of information in today’s world that has made possible to access information at the click of a button. Social Media make the business available to customers by not considering the geographical position of the company (Wamba and Carter, 2016). The overall success of the company relies on the social media channels and how they interact with customers.

Business is utilising these new ways of communication to influence market by adopting social media platform to share their ideas. Every organisation uses an innovative business model to strengthen the traffic from entire global. Social media is far beyond what an individual think. It has become a large influencer as they have grasped millions of people.  For the modern business both opportunities and risk are associated with social media. On one side it provides corporation with the ability to connect with customers and shape their perception and provide timely and targeted promotions. On the other hand social media is undoubtedly the reason for success of a business.   It provides a way to communicate in an organisation internally as well as externally while maintaining professionalism. Social media is a vendor that helps the customer to establish strong relation with business. It is a very effective marketing tool, as amazon also uses internal marketing. Social media have provided a way to for suppliers and business to communicate. Social media helps in displaying about there’s in persons mind and help the business to achieve their goals.

It can be concluded from this essay that ways of communication has changed in these years. The communication has become more flexible and rapid by the use of social media as a tool. The use of social media helps business to achieve long term goals. It has provided various opportunities to the business by promoting image of the brand and enhancing the interaction with customers. The availability of information has created risk for the company in terms of integrity and confidentiality. Apart from that it was concluded that use social media in an adverse way by creating campaigns against an organisation can destroy their image. In recent years the use of social media has increased and acted as an integrated process that helps a business to grow by using marketing, advertisement policies and building customer relation.

References

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