Review Importance of Social Media Purpose †Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Explain the importance of social media purpose? Answer: Introduction The social media has completely revolutionized how the business communicates in the context of work in the 21st century. The modern business world rather than communicating in monolog by broadcasting information through traditional channels is using social media in a unique manner where customers, employees past and present, clients become publishers of content giving their opinions about brands, companies and their services. Organizations are under pressure to adopt social media in all aspects of the business to stay ahead therefore, they are actively implementing the use of social media for bringing quality and efficiency in the work processes. The social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube are fairly popular tools being deployed by organizations in various forms and ways. The social media is a potent tool for the employers to target a specific segment in a fast and efficient manner and also serve as a rich source of information. However, there a re important ethical issues of privacy and discriminating against those segments which are not adequately represented or don't use the social media or even the veracity of information which is posted with malicious intent and how to interpret the same. It will be worthwhile to examine the risks and benefits associated with the use of social media in business before reaching any conclusions. Benefits of Social Media As per the latest (Correia, 2013) worldwide statistics, there are 3.7 billion internet users (nearly 50% of the world population of 7.5 billion) and 2.8 billion (37% penetration) active social media users and growing at a rate of 21%. The social media for business has become no longer optional and businesses are using (Correia, 2013) it to learn more about customers, engage with them, and extend the reach of the brands. It is good to know whether your current and former employees, competitors, and customers are talking positively about your business and brands. The key benefits to business can be summarized as below. Gaining Customer Insights Social media transactions generate valuable real-time data about the organization's customers. On a daily basis 4.5 billion likes (Correia, 2013) on Facebook, 0.5 billion Tweets on Twitter and close to 1 billion photos and videos uploaded on Instagram have a wealth of information (Hassan, Nadzim and Shiratuddin, 2015) about the customers in terms of who they are, where they live, what do they like, and how do they feel about the company's brands and services. The companies can gain real-time information (Cyr, 2012) about their customers and use the same to make smart business decisions. If the company wants to test the response (Kietzmann et al., 2011) to a new advertising or a couple of Ad films and they can simply upload the same on any of the social media sites to gauge the customer sentiment (Mahajan, 2015), find what are people talking about them and then decide which Ad to finally use. Improvement in Brand Awareness These days most of the companies have their own pages (Hassan, Nadzim and Shiratuddin, 2015) on social media sites to help them connect with their customers. A large proportion of the customers search the net for information before buying any product or service and a good social media presence makes it easier for customers to find and connect with the brands. It also helps in increasing the customer retention, brand loyalty (Cyr, 2012) and making them aware of the new launches etc. Most of the multinationals like Apple, Samsung, and Coke etc have their own pages on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other sites to generate awareness and recognition of their products and services. Run targeted campaigns with measurable results Unlike the mass media communicating mediums like television, Print and Radio Ads which are expensive and can disseminate limited content the Social media is relatively inexpensive and can deliver far more content (Dollinger, 2015) to the audience by the segment of your choice. For example, if you are running a recruitment campaign (Hassan, Nadzim and Shiratuddin, 2015) on LinkedIn you can segment by location, gender, age, companies worked for, job title etc and at the same time one can track and measure the performance in real time. Generate Leads for Increased Sales Social media can help the business in connecting with the potential customers (Dollinger, 2015) due to its wide reach and accessibility. The companies can generate awareness about its products and services and connect (Mahajan, 2015) with the key decision makers and new opportunities. Most of the new age businesses like Amazon and Alibaba who are building their businesses online use these tools to promote their campaigns and increase the sales of their products. Provide Customer Service Social Media can help companies connect with their customers to provide 24/7 support and fast response (Kietzmann et al., 2011) to their queries and complaints. Most of the well-known brands like Apple, Samsung, and even consumer brands like Unilever proactively seek feedback on their products and services and provide resolution to any customer related issues on their social media pages. There are studies to prove that this leads to 5-10% increase in financial gains for companies which do this versus companies who don't use social media. Improve Website Traffic and Search Ranking The social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter allows users to create their own web pages or profiles (Krkkinen, Jussila and Visnen, 2013) which can be used to direct potential customers to the company site by relevant content, use of keywords or promoting the website links. The companies can use appropriate content regarding their products or services to generate the interest of the potential customers or excite them to share the same within their network and thus improve the search rankings as well. This helps in the top of mind recall of brands and hence purchases decisions. Understand competition Companies can monitor social media to gain key insights (?eÃ… ¾b, 2012) and information about the competition by creating search streams to monitor competition basis keywords and mentions of their products which can help them improve their own offering in terms of prices, services or content. Most of the Retail companies track the competitor's prices and new product introductions through this means. Aster Sharing of Content Companies can quickly share their content very quickly by posting on social media for a much wider audience at a fraction of the cost (Krkkinen, Jussila and Visnen, 2013). The traditional media like TV or Print Advertisement are limited in the amount of information that can be shared and also it is a one-way medium but in the case of social media you can interact, generate conversations and get instant feedback (?eÃ… ¾b, 2012) about almost anything from the customers. A suitable example would be of Apple which generated a lot of consumer interest by posting teasers of its new Apple 7 months before its actual launch. The company fed information about the new features of the products at regular intervals to generate consumer interest and subsequent purchase. Target Marketing Most of the social media sites have tools that allow you to market your products and services to a specific set of audience (Krkkinen, Jussila and Visnen, 2013) based on demographics or psychographics. For example, if a company wants to test market its products only in a particular city then it can make its content visible to only customers living in that city which may not be possible with other media. Wal-Mart, the global retail giant for example when they open their store in a new location use social media to tap the customers of a particular location or city. Relationship Building Social media can be an interactive channel which allows you to build an active relationship (?eÃ… ¾b, 2012) with your customers by engaging with them in real time. Any comment posted about the brand can generate likes or dislikes or even start a conversation which helps in generating excitement as well as feedback about the brand which may not be possible in case of other media which is largely passive. For example, most of the companies in travel and tourism use this medium very effectively to get customer reactions to their services. Screening and Recruitment Tool Social media can be used to screen candidates for interview (Balasubramanian, Vishnu and Sidharth, 2016) and quickly gain information about the prospects that is not available in the resume or maybe even disclosed by the candidate during the interview. Most of the social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn provide tools (Madia, 2011) for job searches, placement of recruitment Ads and instantaneous measurement of response which can supplement and speed up the entire recruitment lifecycle of the organization. Risks of Social Media The use of social media also comes with its inherent risks on how it is deployed and used (Gaff, 2014) by the firm. Since the message goes out to a wider audience very quickly and can generate negative comments as well, it poses many risks too which can be hazardous to the business. Indirect events (Gaff, 2014) can also impact business like the news story of a boy which went viral when he mistakenly bought a picture of Sony's "PlayStation 4" instead of the actual product on eBay, however Sony reacted by giving him a new "PlayStation" even though they were not responsible for the same but this act reached millions of social media users creating a positive image about the company but if the company had chosen to be quiet it could have also generated lot of negative comments. On the other hand, we have examples of social media channels like Orkut which were very popular but soon became obsolete (Gehl, 2015) due to new developments and technological changes and therefore the companies wh ich were using this medium had to change their strategy. Social media is a potent medium to build and destroy the image of brands very quickly. The key risks to the business can be summarized as below. Human Error One of the disadvantages of real-time engagement with customers is the possibility of mistakes (Gehl, 2015) that can happen due to lack of adequately trained employees. Usually, the team that manages content may be at times outsourced or could even be junior employees who may not have the maturity to respond. At the same time, there are possibilities of company's social media accounts being hacked and malicious content (Khan, Swar and Lee, 2014) being posted which can be disastrous. This can negatively impact the reputation of the companies. For example in 2011 when Netflix announced a 60% price increase which resulted in a lot of customers reacting negatively to the same and the news became viral on social media impacting the company's stock price and reputation. Even though their CEO subsequently published a video on YouTube apologizing for this incident but it did not help matters and the company is still struggling to recover from this disaster. Lack of Policies and Processes Companies need to formulate the processes and policies (Khan, Swar and Lee, 2014) on use of social media by defining the permissions, data access, escalation and approval matrices etc before it is adopted. The content must be approved by the appropriate authority before the same is posted as per the defined rules otherwise it can lead to chaos. Legal and Compliance The legal issues can be in the realm of privacy laws (Peterson, 2014), ownership of content, infringement of intellectual property rights (Sarikakis and Winter, 2017) and even human resource related such as defamation (Sarabdeen, 2014) etc as it is an open forum and anyone has access to post his comments and views. Companies must also resort to record keeping, compliance with rules of advertising (Makhitha, 2016) while posting content as the same is auditable basis the rules and regulation prevailing in the country. Every message that gets posted is subject to compliance risk and this is even more so in case of pharmaceutical companies (Sarabdeen, 2014) as if any negative side effect of a drug which gets reported by a customer on the social media pages of the company must be reported to FDA and it can even result in that drug being taken off the shelves till further tests prove it otherwise. Data Protection and Security Companies need to comply with each counties local data protection and security laws (Jacobi, 2014) especially if employees are connecting with each other or sharing information across countries. There is also an impending threat of malware or viruses (Jacobi, 2014) creeping into the company's system through the open social media networks through cyber attacks. Sony has suffered (Sarikakis and Winter, 2017) at the customer level when its "PlayStation" customer's personal details were leaked, and at the corporate level when its Hollywood executive's emails were leaked and embarrassing details published on the social media. Operational Challenges Though social media can create a competitive edge but it can also reduce employee productivity (Khan, Swar and Lee, 2014) during work hours if social media is used for personal reasons. It is for this reason alone many companies restrict the use of social media to only a few employees in some departments like Public Relations or Human Resources who have a direct use of the same. This could create operational and other discrimination issues for other employees who are not allowed access. Costs Even though social media is perceived to be "free", companies need to spend (Makhitha, 2016) on bandwidth, content creation, hosting and updating content, maintain records, and manage governance issues for which they will have to hire experts who do not come cheap. Unlike traditional mediums, there is large information to deal with which will require resources to manage the same. Veracity of Information The information available on the social media may or may not be authentic and it is very difficult to establish its veracity. At times the information that is shared on sites is distorted to improve social desirability and to project a certain kind of social image. For example, sites which sell their products online may upload false testimonials of dummy customers to gain acceptance and increase the popularity of their products. It is a known fact that just to get more followers and likes on the page many small and start-up organizations may go to any extreme which may be very different from reality. Conclusions and Trends To summarize, companies need to realize both the benefits and risks associated with the social media communication. If done right it can lead to more customers, traffic, and conversions but at the same time the risks must be managed through good governance and risk control by formulating proper policies and procedures (Flew, 2015) and at the same time deployment of right technology to enforce these policies. The interactive communication by use of social media is perhaps the best change of the 21st Century post the industrial revolution as it has led to more responsible behavior on part of businesses as well as customers. Companies who decide to invest in social media must understand that though it is easy to start but very difficult to maintain and it should confront all the pros and cons (Srauy, 2015) of this medium and analyze the return on investment, that is, how much will the social media cost versus the gains (Flew, 2015) that will accrue, before embarking on this journey. Soc ial media is like a long journey and with the development of new tools and techniques (Srauy, 2015) every second what is good today may not be relevant tomorrow, therefore, the companies who embark on this journey must keep abreast of these changes. Also, companies must interweave the social media strategy with the overall goals and objectives of the organization. References Balasubramanian, D., Vishnu, P. and Sidharth, S. (2016). Social Media as a Recruitment Tool. Bonfring International Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management Science, 6(3), pp.108-110. Correia, A. (2013). Social Information: Gaining Competitive and Business Advantage Using Social Media Tools20136Scott Brown. Social Information: Gaining Competitive and Business Advantage Using Social Media Tools. Witney: Chandos Publishing 2012. 323 pp. 52.00 soft cover, ISBN: 9781843346678 Chandos Publishing Social Media Series. Online Information Review, 37(1), pp.151-152. Cyr, A. (2012). Social Media. Oncology Times, 34, pp.1-3. Dollinger, M. (2015). Social media: Cui bono? Who benefits from all this socialness?. Business Horizons, 58(3), pp.235-236. Flew, T. (2015). Social Media Governance. Social Media + Society, 1(1), p.205630511557813. Gaff, B. (2014). Corporate Risks from Social Media. Computer, 47(1), pp.13-15. Gehl, R. (2015). The Case for Alternative Social Media. Social Media + Society, 1(2), p.205630511560433. Hassan, S., Nadzim, S. and Shiratuddin, N. (2015). Strategic Use of Social Media for Small Business Based on the AIDA Model. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 172, pp.262-269. Jacobi, J. (2014). Implementation of a cross-border social media strategy. Strategic HR Review, 13(4/5). Krkkinen, H., Jussila, J. and Visnen, J. (2013). Social Media Use and Potential in Business-to-Business Companies Innovation. International Journal of Ambient Computing and Intelligence, 5(1), pp.53-71. Khan, G., Swar, B. and Lee, S. (2014). Social Media Risks and Benefits: A Public Sector Perspective. Social Science Computer Review, 32(5), pp.606-627. Kietzmann, J., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I. and Silvestre, B. (2011). Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business Horizons, 54(3), pp.241-251. Madia, S. (2011). Best practices for using social media as a recruitment strategy. Strategic HR Review, 10(6), pp.19-24. Mahajan, R. (2015). Use of Social Media as a New Investigative Tool in Marketing Research for Small Business. International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning, 5(3), pp.129-135. Makhitha, K. (2016). RISKS OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA AS A MARKETING TOOL FOR SMALL PRODUCERS IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY. Risk Governance and Control: Financial Markets Institutions, 6(4). Peterson, E. (2014). Business Strategies for Managing the Legal Risks of Social Media. Journal of Management and Sustainability, 4(3). ?eÃ… ¾b, J. (2012). Social Media Marketing and Brands Social Marketing Behavior. Central European Business Review, 1(1), p.49. Sarabdeen, J. (2014). Legal Risks in Social Media Marketing. International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning, 4(3). Sarikakis, K. and Winter, L. (2017). Social Media Users Legal Consciousness About Privacy. Social Media + Society, 3(1), p.205630511769532. Srauy, S. (2015). The Limits of Social Media: What Social Media Can Be, and What We Should Hope They Never Become. Social Media + Society, 1(1), p.205630511557867