Advantages And Disadvantages Of Social Media Marketing

Discuss about the Pros and Cons of Social Media Marketing for Large Population.

The article entails the merits and demerits that come about with social media marketing whereby products will be advertised and promoted using social media. Social media has changed the way in which business interact with its existing and potential customers and its use is really trending globally meaning a it has a wide range of users indicating an opportunity to exploit the large population for advertising purposes. The main social media users are young people mostly of who are women thus commodities targeting the youth and women should take to this platform as a marketing tool. However the use of social media for advertising has its share of advantages and disadvantages as I will elaborate later. Social media are applications and websites such as Facebook, MySpace, Instagram, Google+ and Twitter which provide a platform for communication and sharing of content both personal and public to a larger community. Clark, Black, and Judson (2017). The key point to note is the information is shared in real time. As for me and based on the evidence provided, social media marketing is has more benefits and thus is an ideal platform for marketing and promoting products especially if the targeted customers is the youth. I will highlight using examples and their references to bring out the benefits and flaws of using social media marketing. I will also highlight how companies can capitalize on the benefits and navigate through the flaws and which will outweigh the other thus leading to an informed conclusion on the matter.

In response to this, I will use Facebook as an example since it the most popular social media platform. Facebook has about 1.86 billion active users globally. Wiederhold, B.K., 2017. Thinking of quitting Facebook? For any company to have a successful marketing strategy, it must reach out to as many people as it possibly can. With regards to Facebook trending it can be said to be viral. Translating this against the world population, it means that around 1 out of every 5 people globally are active Facebook users with women accounting for 58% of the users and the majority being 18 to 29 years old. Fardouly,et al (2015).

The more targeted customers a company reaches out to, the more potential sales it will make thus highlighting the importance of using Facebook and other social media platforms in marketing since they incorporate millions of users.  Armstrong, et al (2015). 

Large population using social media which updates in real time

The main advantage is the social media marketing is that it is able to reach a wide population 24 hours a day since social media is always active. The main flaw is that despite the wide population, it is not a guarantee that the targeted group will be reached as social media incorporates a wide range of users of different age brackets and gender. For example, in USA, some states have a legal drinking age of 21 and above, and since social media is accessible by young people under the age of 21 years, the social media marketing may reach the wrong audience since it would be accessible by users who are under 21 years of age in those states.

Implementing a successful social media strategy will go a great deal in increasing awareness of the product brand which is being promoted since you will be engaging with a broad and large audience of consumers.

Feedback in social media marketing implies real time between the targeted audience and the administrator of the account. Given that the social media accounts, websites and applications update in real time and there is a platform for comments, the company is able to monitor the progress and responses of its adverts in real time and take action effective immediately where required. Weltevrede, Helmond and Gerlitz, (2014). Real time updating means that the administrator of a company account can also answer to queries or provide clarification to potential customers. 67% of consumers have used a company’s social media channel for customer service. Leeflang, et al (2014).

This enhances users experience and since the answers are not automated and it also helps in creating customer brand loyalty since the company is in constant communication with its customers. This will lead to development of personal relationships achieving a more loyal fan base for a company or product than with an impersonal marketing campaign, as and this will aid the company understand its customers and better products for customers to buy. The company using social media is also able to gather information via the comments on how to improve their products. For example, Facebook has a comment section where users leave their comments, suggestion and queries and the administrator is able to send a feedback via the same platform. Additionally, comments that are positive for example those that commend the company and its products, go a long in creating a positive image for the company thus attracting more customers. For example, if you visit the Coca cola Facebook page, you will see dialog between users and the company. Shin, Pang and Kim (2015).

Feedback

The only flaw about feedback is negative comments. Some of the unsatisfied customers may use this as a platform to leave negative feedback about a company and its products or a negative experience with the company which may give the company negative publicity since the comment is viewed by all member. Also, companies should be careful not to post information that may jeopardize customers’ security. Also, companies should scrutinize the discussions happening on their wall or in their “comments” areas: discussions that detract from the brand’s image should be disallowed to turn away potential customers from the company or product.

Social media is available to users 24 hours a day which means that it time intensive and requires a lot of attention around the clock. Meeker, (2015). It tends to be time consuming due to the high news feed in social media, and because of this, adverts may be missed by users and thus there has to be someone always monitoring the account, answer questions, respond to queries and posting and updating information regarding a product in real time. Failure to commit time in social media marketing will mean that the platform will not be a successful tool for marketing and will lag behind competitors who commit more time. Thus to do this successfully, more time which equates to more must be invested in the social media marketing.

However, the advantage is that the adverts are available 24 hours a day and also, consumers can get response to their questions and queries in real time.

Despite real time updates and adverts being available for 24 hours a day, the time invested to make it work is tremendous and thus with regards to this, it can be seen as major flaw.

Social media is dependent on internet for its operation. This means that companies using social media marketing also depend on the internet and this is a major disadvantage since they have no control over it. Ognyanova, Katherine, and Sandra (2015). For example, for a user to access Facebook or Instagram one has to be connected to the internet. With countries or areas where internet connectivity is not available, then this means that the company cannot be able to reach out to its customers or attract new customers. This is more so in third world countries like in Africa and other places where geographical barriers make a place inaccessible to internet coverage. West, (2015). Also, it cannot work on it cannot work on its own and requires tools to direct customers to products such as websites and blogs.

Time consuming

Dependency on internet connectivity is under the PEST analysis which is a situation where a business encounters challenges that it has no control over and it can be a major impediment to the business in terms of social media marketing.

The landscape of social media is changing rapidly thus making it unpredictable. For example in the 2000s, MySpace was what was trending but now it has been out done. Bauckhage and Kersting, (2014). Also, in 2018 Facebook was hit with a scandal involving algorithms which then saw very few posts on product brands surface on the user feed. Another detriment on the issue is that the companies do not have control over this.

 The only advantage of this is that there are numerous companies competing not to be outdone thus they will tend to offer better services to outdo their opponent which means the companies will benefit from better services.

Companies using social media marketing should always be up to date with which social media platform is trending and has majority of users in order to make their marketing via the platform viable.

Conclusion

From the literature review, it is very evident that social media marketing is very important especially in the modern day and era where it is trending and has become a norm. It is also evident it has its advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage is that social media has a lot of followers making it an ideal platform to reach out to many people. Also, there is real time communication between company administrator social media account and the customers and this is a major advantage since issues are dealt with promptly. The major disadvantages are the fact that needs a lot of time investment which translates to expenditure financially. The other disadvantages is that social media is dependent on internet for its operations and the unpredictable nature of social media both of which fall under the PEST analysis meaning the company seeking to use social media marketing has no control over them.

References 

Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education.

Bauckhage, C. and Kersting, K., 2014. Strong regularities in growth and decline of popularity of social media services. arXiv preprint arXiv:1406.6529

Clark, M., Black, H.G. and Judson, K., 2017. Brand community integration and satisfaction with social media sites: a comparative study. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 11(1), pp.39-55.

Fardouly, J., Diedrichs, P.C., Vartanian, L.R. and Halliwell, E., 2015. Social comparisons on social media: The impact of Facebook on young women’s body image concerns and mood. Body Image, 13, pp.38-45.

Leeflang, et alP.S., Verhoef, P.C., Dahlström, P. and Freundt, T., 2014. Challenges and solutions for marketing in a digital era. European management journal, 32(1), pp.1-12.

Meeker, M., 2015. Internet trends 2015-code conference. Glokalde, 1(3).

Ognyanova, Katherine, and Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach. “Political efficacy on the internet: A media system dependency approach.” In Communication and Information Technologies Annual, pp. 3-27. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2015.

Sandeep, V., Gopal, K.L., Naveen, S., Amudhan, A. and Kumar, L.S., 2015, August. Globally accessible machine automation using Raspberry pi based on Internet of Things. In Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI), 2015 International Conference on (pp. 1144-1147). IEEE.

Shin, W., Pang, A. and Kim, H.J., 2015. Building relationships through integrated online media: Global organizations’ use of brand web sites, Facebook, and Twitter. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 29(2), pp.184-220.

Weltevrede, E., Helmond, A. and Gerlitz, C., 2014. The politics of real-time: A device perspective on social media platforms and search engines. Theory, Culture & Society, 31(6), pp.125-150.

West, D.M., 2015. Digital divide: Improving Internet access in the developing world through affordable services and diverse content. Brookings Institution.

Wiederhold, B.K., 2017. Thinking of quitting Facebook?