Impact of Social Media on Business
Businesses are faced with a new set of challenges in this era of globalization and technological advancement. In order to meet these challenges and effectively market products and promote brand identity, business owners, managers and CEOs need to develop strategies which allow them to interact with potential customers using the medium of their choice. The social media revolution that the world has witnessed over the last decade has compelled businesses to harness the power of social media to meet the growing demands of openness, transparency, honesty and for establishing a more direct relationship with buyers.
Before the social media revolution, marketing of new products and services was limited to newspaper and magazine ads, billboard advertisement and press releases. Social media has effectively changed the rules of the game. Today, with over 500 million active Facebook users and almost 175 million registered users on Twitter, companies can ill afford to turn a blind eye to social media as a growing number of people demand greater interaction with the brands that interest them. They want their voices to be heard and expect companies to respond to their criticism and feedback. Instead of operating with an air of secrecy, companies need to open up and face their customers to be able to convince them that their product is worth buying.
With the advent of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook and their astounding success, a large number of popular brands such as Starbucks, Coca Cola and Disney have started using these tools to try and engage people. This is accomplished by giving customers greater insight into the people that make up these companies so that they can get to know about the company’s personality to enable them to feel comfortable in buying from them. The object now is to create a connection with potential customers and not try to sell all the time.
Social media has provided consumers a tool which they can use to voice their concerns and share both good and bad experiences that they’ve had with a product or service with their friends and networks. This allows news to travel fast and has the potential to reach hundreds if not thousands of people in a matter of minutes. Businesses that are aware of the power of social media need to establish relationships with their customers by ensuring that their needs are met in a satisfactory manner. This means that top management, including CEOs, need to make an effort to try and connect with customers directly as much as possible in an attempt to reassure them that they are being looked after and even the smallest of issues that they face are of great importance to the company.
Companies need to allow their employees to develop relationships with clients through the use of blogs and social networking websites. Such relationships go a long way in creating a positive impression in people’s minds and in giving the company a human face. Maintaining a blog lets business owners share their views on issues that they are passionate about, allowing them to open up to their customers.
A major impact that social media has had on businesses is that they now need to have a presence on at least one or two major social networking platforms — be it Facebook, Twitter, Youtube or Flickr — to enable customers to get in touch with them through a medium of their own choice rather than forcing them to interact via email or phone only. Greater accessibility helps develop reliability and trust among customers and is a sure fire way to retain an existing client base and can also be used to help spread the word about good customer service by word of mouth which will help bring in more business.
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