THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN BUSINESS SUCCESS

THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN BUSINESS SUCCESS

            It sounds strange to think of a time when social media was not an integral part of promoting small businesses. While many business owners still struggle on how best they can engage and promote their businesses on the social media platform, signs depict that they are slowly gaining confidence on social media as one of reliable platforms to promote their businesses. In 2012 for instance, a survey which was administered by Constant Contact reported that 54% of business owners needed help in regard to promoting their businesses on social media. At the moment, the number has reduced to 45%. This is an indication that confidence has begun translating into success slowly. 72 percent have however explained that their marketing efforts across the main channels like social, mobile, email and web are working (Huy & Shipilov, 2012).

Socially shrewd entrepreneurs have understood that it is all about engaging the right audience with the right information. This is because online community has proved not to tolerate self-promoters who take social media for granted and as a means of free advertising. Considering this fact, small businesses usually face a challenge when it comes to balancing the use of social media to promote and engage their potential customers (Kietzmann et al., 2011).

Promotion and engagement have remained to be the two sides of the coin when it comes to relating social media with business success. Engagement basically entails a consistent sharing of insights and feeding potential customers with valuable information whenever a chance opens to connect with them. This establishes credibility while enhancing trust and inspires potential customers to extent the information to their colleagues about the business. On the other hand, promotion basically stretches the efforts of engagement further by tabling valuable offers based on customers’ needs as well as interests. In this way, social media amplifies the efforts of a business to reach and engage more audiences to grow the business (Oyza & Edwin, 2015).

Through social media, businesses have traced their way towards success in various ways. Obtaining valuable insights about potential customers is the core of this journey to success. This is in consideration to the fact that social media usually generate lots of data about potential customers in real time. For instance, in every day there are over 4.4 billion likes on Facebook platform, over 500 million Tweets and over 95 million uploaded photos and videos on Instagram. Behind these huge numbers lies a wealth of data about a business’s potential customers, who they are, their interests as well as their reactions towards a business’s brand. Socially listening to them and maintaining an active engagement on daily basis avails relevant customer information which can be utilized by the business to make some smarter decisions (Xiang & Gretzel, 2012).

It is a fact beyond reasonable doubt that some businesses face shortage of customers not because their brands are inferior to those of their competitors but because their brands lack awareness to potential customers. I mean, it is not logical for a customer to just purchase a product because he has come across it without any information on its usage, advantages as well as side effects. Social media has become an effective platform for that matter, increasing brand awareness and loyalty. Features of a product can be clearly displayed on social media platform with the necessary guidance on their usage as well. Any questions in regard to the product can be answered anywhere and anytime with necessary clarifications where the customers may be having doubts. This not only opens wider markets for business products but also increases customer retention and brand loyalty (Oyza & Edwin, 2015).

Provision of rich customer experiences is another advantage of using social media platform to promote a business success. Research has indicated that over 67% of customers in the current market rush to social media for customer services. That way, even if the business system expert is not on the social media, most of its customers expect that he or she should be there no matter the time. The customers will therefore expect fast responses and a 24/7 support whenever they face challenges concerning the products purchased from the business or when they need clarifications on usage. Businesses that deliver in this sector not only do they win out but also create customer loyalty. A research by Aberdeen Group indicates that companies and businesses engaging on social media customer services realize bigger annual gains (75%) when compared to those without social customer services (2.9%) (Xiang & Gretzel, 2012).

Being aware of the progress of competitors’ progress in a business venture is very important. Credit to social media platform, gaining key information about competitors has been made as easy as a press of a button. Being aware of what the competitors are doing allows a business to make strategic business decisions which enables it to stay a head or even compete fairly. Social media technology like Hootsuite enables businesses monitor industry mentions of its competitor’s name as well as products. Based on the monitoring results, a business can easily improve in order to offer product enhancements, services, or the basic content that may be missing (Xiang & Gretzel, 2012).

Despite of the numerous ways in which social media has contributed towards the business success, challenges are inevitable. For instance, creating effective cross channel strategies by the businesses using social media platforms to promote their products can be challenging in consideration to the fact that each channel has its own distinct format and tone dictating the manner in which content should fit. Additionally, the target customers have their own habits as well as preferences and are likely to consult different platforms before getting to know the specific business. Theoretically, having these platforms work together in synergy will definitely create a cohesive brand impression but making it work effectively across all the available social media platforms requires advanced skills for an SMM (Xiang & Gretzel, 2012).

Time management has also been a challenge to businesses using social media as a promotion platform. This has been a challenge since no matter how hard a business works to make sure that it reaches its potential customers and satisfy them as per their requirements, there is always more that needs attention. Making sure that a week has been organized based on what can be shared as well as what needs individual attention has proved to a better way to getting things accomplished (Huy & Shipilov, 2012).

Data management has also been a challenge to businesses relying on social media for promotion and customer engagement. The challenge faced here regards to the amount of data which is collected and how the business can disseminate it to the right people. This is in consideration to the fact that the data collected from these sites is huge and therefore analyzing it becomes a challenge. Still limiting the reach to some sites may result to biased data which eventually may mislead the business when it comes to making strategic decisions (Huy & Shipilov, 2012).

The fast rate at which technology is changing however can be daunting for business leaders. At times it appears that as quickly as a business adopts a new technology, it becomes outdated the next morning or a different product is launched to take its place. With the trends at such a rate coming up with strategies to keep up is very important. In order to keep up with this changing technology, most businesses have chosen to partner with startups. This has come up after realizing that there are more innovations out in the market than they can tackle as standalone businesses. Instead of funding the innovations themselves, they have resolved to foster partnerships with startups in the industry. Bearing the fact that startups have always depicted the picture of eagerness when it comes to testing business advances, this idea has really worked for most of the businesses (Huy & Shipilov, 2012).

Businesses have also resolved to create incubator models whose main focus is trying new ideas for a business to see which can be promising and which are prone to failure. The only responsibility of the business here is to fund the incubator. The journey to settling at the best models however takes time but helps the business to keep up with the changing technology. Some well-resourced companies like Coca-Cola have tried this approach and settled on partnering with VCs however.

References

Huy, Q., & Shipilov, A. (2012). The key to social media success within organizations. MIT Sloan Management Review, 54(1), 73.

Kietzmann, J. H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I. P., & Silvestre, B. S. (2011). Social media? Get     serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business      horizons, 54(3), 241-251.

Oyza, I., & Edwin, A. M. (2015). Effectiveness of social media networks as a strategic tool for    organizational marketing management. The Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce.

Xiang, Z., & Gretzel, U. (2012). Role of social media in online travel information search. Tourism management, 31(2), 179-188.