Benefits of using social media for business

Discuss about the Impact Of Social Media In Business Operation.

Social media, also known as the new media, consists of websites and applications to allow the users to generate and share contentment by social networking. This particular media is mainly mediated with the use of computer technologies and mobile smart phones. The idea or concept is created and shared among the virtual communities. Social media forms an important part of business communication. It permits the users to take part in any event, provide feedback, get information and allow sharing of mutual ideas (Agnihotri et al. 2016). In a business organization, social media helps in cost savings, make customer communication better and enhance the selection of target customers by creating loyalty and reviews. This essay will deal with the role played by social media in contemporary business communication. It will highlight the impact of social media in the contemporary business operation.

The business operating all over the world is dependent on the use of social media for effective communication. Use of modern technologies is responsible for creating a drastic change in the sphere of business communication. The intention behind using advanced technology is to maintain effective communication with the customers by using any kind of device. Initially social media was not created for business use but its increasing popularity among the people resulted in making it a huge platform for marketing and communication. The businesspersons have the opportunity to advertise their products and services on the social media networking sites. Apart from that, it paves the way for the companies to keep in touch with the customers by using this platform (Ashley and Tuten 2015). Following are the benefits of using social media for business purpose:

• Create connection: Social media not only helps the companies in providing information about certain products and services but also acts as bridge to connect with the customers. The aim of social media is to focus on involving with the customers much more than selling the particular product or services (Chang, Yu and Lu 2015). For instance, there are certain companies who show much interest in flaunting their personal pets rather than displaying the low cost of products. On the other hand, there are companies who use social media as a platform to display their corporate social responsibility in the form of charity, social issue and saving the environment and natural resources.
• Campaigning by the company: social media acts as a personal network to broadcast about own products and services without any additional investment on the primitive form of advertising. Previously the customers had to rely on the displaying of advertisement either in the broadcasting or in the print or outdoor media. However, the companies can now reach their potential target customers easily with a click. On the other hand, it has become easy for the customers to share feedback on the selected products and services. Earlier, they had to wait for a long time to share their opinion on a business transaction. This advancement has given scope to the company to react immediately according to the feedback of the customers. It has become easy for them to recognize an admiring comment or address any issue related to their products and services to avoid future controversy (Dahnil et al. 2014).  
• Image building: The companies get a human appearance by connecting with the people on the social media platform. There are some companies that permit the employees to write a blog or post something on behalf of the company to increase their like and appreciation between the potential customers as well as the existing one. In the contemporary business environment, there is no option to keep a veil of goodness on the image of the company because the customers; review rating reveal it all in front of the target customers. It helps in trust building and reaching out to the potential customers with similar interests (Godey et al. 2016).
• Available always: The social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are available for 24 hours and the business is never shut down. People are growing an affinity towards using these channels because they are responsible for addressing any issue on their own at their best possible time. They often reply at an instant and the customers are satisfied with the resolution of their problem at their availability (Hassan, Nadzim and Shiratuddin 2015).

Another form of social networking is earned social media where there are strategies to lead people in sharing information among each other. The leading is necessary, as it is not sufficient to use social media only for posting and expect an outcome without doing anything else. The computer systems and mobile technologies are becoming accountable for capturing the operations of the market and it has resulted in turning a large population towards communicating through social media instead of using the primitive form of communication (Hudson et al. 2016).

In the 21^st century, social media is gaining momentum as numerous people are joining the networking sites. The people have learnt the effective use of social media platforms and they are the reason behind the booming of this industry. It is high time for the business enterprises to spread on a global range by taking help of the excellent growth of social media. It does not mean that the businesspersons have to follow social media because it is the ongoing trend, rather they should use it for the sake of their target customers. a business survives because of the customers so it is their responsibility to select the channels wisely which is connected to the customers. The key advantage of linking a business with the social media platform is to develop the business and keep in touch with the customers at a higher level. It helps in influencing the online marketing (Kumar et al. 2016).

Influence social advertising

A research carried out by (Nunan et al. 2018) found out that 71% of customers tend to recommend a brand among his peer groups only if it has a positive feedback from the social media platform. The percentage of adults using the social media platform has increased in 10 years from 7% to 69%. In the mobile applications too, the social media has experienced a growth of 30% each year. Statistics have shown that around 2 millions businesses take support of Face book advertising to promote their products and services (Schivinski and Dabrowski 2015). 

The use of social media in the business environment has provided lots of opportunities and advantages, which are given below:

Influence social advertising: Advertising through social media is the new trend in business environment and it has resulted in an unbelievable growth in the business. The use of Facebook ads can be used in this respect. The use of advertisement in social media was first introduced in the year 2005, which resulted in gaining 9.16B ad revenue in the first half of 2017. It is a reflection of the fact that social media is going to spread its positive impact for a long term in the upcoming days. The advent of social media in the business and its related outcome has encouraged other businesses to experiment in the similar field as they have realized its importance in digital marketing (Swani et al. 2017).

Decreased advertising cost: If social media is compared with the primitive forms of advertising such as television, print, radio, then it can be found out that the contemporary forms of advertising can be relied on as it is cost- effective. The businesses get the permission to involve numerous social media channels free of cost for measuring the paid advertisements. Opportunity is provided to the businesses to grow and develop independently at their own pace.

Specific and targeted reach: The primitive forms of advertising did not allow in reaching out to the target audience as compared to the social media ads. Offline advertising is more like throwing pebbles in the dark and there is no assurance that it will hit the aim. Moreover, the return feedback might disappoint the business in case of offline advertising. On the other hand, the use of social media to advertise about products and services for reaching out to the target customers increase the conversions and result in getting higher return on investment (Trainor et al. 2014).

Decreased advertising cost

Original performance evaluation: It is important to keep a follow- up if the advertisement is gaining success in the market. It will be helpful for the companies to work on the betterment of the advertisements. The drawback of offline advertising lies in not being able to track its effectiveness in the market. This leads to a severe effect either in a positive or negative way. Social media advertising holds a bigger advantage in this respect as it can keep a constant tab on the effectiveness of its ads. The ad can be changed at any instant if it is not performing well and check the outcome. It is an important part of the business to grow a realization that social media is successful in spreading all over the globe to pose a positive impact on the business environment. It has a bright future in front as the new media.

Enhance brand awareness: Social media is strong equipment in terms of increasing brand awareness. It is unwise for the businesses to ignore social media advertising for promoting their products and services. In this way, they provide advantage to their competitors to establish their business. However, a majority of the business personnel agree that social media has a positive impact on increasing the brand awareness (Tuten and Solomon 2017). There are certain strategies, which need to be followed by the business officials in order to increase their business awareness by using social media:

The most important task is to find out the target audience at whom the ad will be aimed. It is an immediate step prior to the selection of a suitable social media channel. One option of finding out about the target audience is to seek for pertinent conversations about the product and industry. For instance, Adobe is a significant B2B company, which might find their audience in LinkedIn rather than Face book. The second step is to grab the attention of the target audience by creating attractive visuals in the form of images and video. Social media enables two- way communication so it is important to post, get feedback, tag, converse and mention (Wang, Pauleen and Zhang 2016).

The positive aspects of social media in the business environment and its significance in making the business better are discussed throughout the essay. However, it will be unwise to ignore the challenges related to the social media marketing. Few challenges the business might face in social media marketing is listed below:

Specific and targeted reach

The key challenge that the business might face is the way to develop a social media strategy. If the businesses are not aware of the objective of social media advertising then it can be difficult for them to implement the same. It is required to set a group of social media goals to be specific in attaining the desired outcome (Swani et al. 2017).

It might seem to be difficult for the business organizations to realize that the return on investment in social media marketing is different from the primitive form of advertising. The value of the Tweet is not easy to get by clicking on the advertisement. The businesses do not find it easy to select a suitable social media platform for promotion. It might be daunting for them to find out the appropriate platform in relation to their products and services. Many businesses might fail to promote through digital marketing due to their incapability in selecting the appropriate tool (Godey et al. 2016).

Conclusion  

Therefore it can be concluded from the discussion that social media is an effective platform to grow and develop a business. It has several benefits over the traditional form of media advertising. However, there are certain challenges that the businesses might face while being introduced to the process of digital marketing.

References

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