The primary reason businesses use Social Media is for marketing to their existing and prospective CUSTOMERS; it WARRANTS AN online business tactic

Peter Mavridis

The sheer number of people using online communities (‘Social Media’) e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter has created a mass media channel that enables business to communicate and engage with both existing and target customers. Business communication is undertaken in order to achieve an outcome that results in generating demand for the product or service that the business is selling (Webb & Roberts 2016).

How businesses reach their external audiences through communication is paramount to building meaningful relationships that promote increased sales, profits, and market share. But, is this new mass media channel of Social Media an effective tool for business communications?

In order to consider the effectiveness of Social Media as a form of business communications we must first look at how businesses use this communication channel. The research confirms that the primary reason businesses use Social Media is for marketing to their existing and prospective customers

With the rising costs of advertising, social media has become the number one channel for business to reach clients and consumers

Webb & Roberts 2016

Business utilise Social Media to communicate with their customers and suppliers, to build relationships and trust, and to identify prospective trading partners (Shih, 2009). In addition, businesses use Social Media to promote brands and to support the creation of brand communities (Kaplan, 2012; Leek & Christodoulides, 2011). For example; companies can create business accounts to promote their products and to share information with customers via their social media pages (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016).

Benefits of Social Media Marketing

According to Webb & Roberts (2016) through realising the benefits of adopting or utilising social media as a viable medium, continual rewards such as acquiring new customers and developing lasting long-term relationships promoting customer loyalty can be attained. This communication channel allows businesses to express current information, such as prices and offers of discounts, in order to generate new sales. Used in this way Social Media offers real time, instantaneous transmission visible to customers.

By using Social Media, a business is able to achieve a communication outcome with many customers simultaneously, called parallel communications.  Social Media is a highly parallel form of communication as a single message with one click can be sent to many followers.  A marketer can see who is online at the time the message is sent, who has read or not read the message and analyse the immediate response. Further, a business can answer customer questions in real time, increasing the likelihood of a sale.

Customer Needs

Finally, Social Media can support customer involvement so that organizations can gain clear insights into customer needs (Stockdale et al., 2012). Drawing on customer insights can aid organizations in identifying and addressing negative publicity and customer complaints and likewise to recognize, acquire and exploit new knowledge (Stockdale et al., 2012). Social Media can also be utilized to identify new business opportunities and new product ideas, to develop their products, and to improve their services (Barashi, 2012; Jussila et al., 2014).

Conclusion

It is clear from much research on the topic and the points discussed that the correct use of Social Media by a business should have a positive impact on business performance. By using Social Media as a communication channel, business can improve their performance in terms of sales, marketing, innovation, and collaboration with customers.

List of References

Barashi, R. (2012). The impact of using social networking site (SNS) on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) comparing to large enterprises. Australia: Flinders University—Adelaide.

Järvinen, J., & Taiminen, H. (2016). Harnessing marketing automation for B2B content marketing. Industrial Marketing Management, 54, 164–175.

Jussila, J.J., Kärkkäinen, H., & Aramo-Immonen, H. (2014). Social media utilization in business-to-business relationships of technology industry firms. Computers in Human Behavior, 30, 606–613. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.07.047

Kaplan, A.M. (2012). If you love something, let it go mobile: Mobile marketing and mobile social media 4 × 4. Business Horizons, 55(2), 129–139. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2011.10.009.

Shih, C. (2009). The Facebook era: Tapping online social networks to build better products,reach new audiences, and sell more stuff. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Stockdale, R., Ahmed, A., & Scheepers, H. (2012, 12–15 July). Identifying business value from the use of social media: An SME perspective. Paper presented at the The Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Webb, S.H., & Roberts, S.j. (2016) Communication and Social Media Approaches in Small Businesses, Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness Vol. 10(1)  

For further information on how your business can use big data, contact Peter Mavridis at hello@permavridiscom.au