Social Media has become a regular buzz-word used in the social-economic space, however it is highly important to understand how it can affect not just our lives as individuals but also as an organisation. Social Media has been defined as the way in which people interact to create, share, and / or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. In comparison with the traditional media, Social Media has very high level of efficiency and this has prompted many organisations to get on to the Social Media platform to be able to take part in the successful online environment (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). The array of social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and YouTube can be overwhelming to navigate. Before using social networking and media, decide what you want Social Media to do for your organisation. Social Media often plays a marketing role in organisations, but it can do more than that. Social Media can bring in new customers or clients and help you better serve your current customer base. Social media can help drive the following for an organisation:
- Customer engagement exploits the long-term value of customers. It is based on the idea that focusing efforts on an immediate sale may not be the best way to create an ongoing sales relationship with the customer. Rather, engagement over time may create a stronger relationship with greater organisational benefits. For most businesses today, creating this ongoing relationship, in which multiple sales are made, is part of their business strategy. Customer engagement recognises that buyers’ actions related to the organisation are important that they will influence business performance. For example, customers who are loyal to a brand may advocate for the brand within their network. “Word of mouth” (telling other people) is a well-known benefit of customer engagement, and one used well before the onset of Social Media. It is possible to influence customer engagement with effective Social Media Management. Customer behaviour has changed significantly in the past decade. Traditional advertising is less effective, organisations find it harder to control their messages, consumers have a stronger voice and presence in the market and the Internet has led to greater competition and weaker brand loyalty. However, more opportunities exist today to create positive engagement activities using Social Media than have existed in the past. Using Social Media for customer engagement allows organisations to communicate with customers inside the market, enabling the organisations to participate in and influence the conversation around their brand. Effective customer engagement strengthens brand loyalty and influences the actions of consumers in their marketplace discussions and purchasing behaviour which ultimately lead to better performance in terms of what is in the books of the company or operational output.
- Marketing: Social Media provides ample opportunities for marketing products and services. If you only post advertisements, though, your audience may stop following you altogether. Rather than hitting your customers over the head with advertising, give tips on how to use your product or service.
- Real-time Update: Social Media allows you to communicate with your audience quickly. Food vending trucks, for example, use Twitter to communicate where they are going to be that day and when, along with any last-minute scheduling changes. You can have a last-minute sale or let your customers know you have run out of a popular product. Consider providing other news your clients may find relevant; if you hit a traffic jam on your way home, tweet it to your followers using Twitter (when you are not driving) to warn others to avoid the area. You are a clothing retailer, for example, write a blog post on how to put together a business casual look. Give your customers a reason to keep reading.
- Relationship Building: Social Media can build relationships between your business and customers. Your customers can comment on your posts and you can also give a glimpse (an appropriate one, of course) into your personal life. A pet food store owner, for example, may post about his own pets and post pictures of clients with their pets. This can help build your business into a community, increasing the likelihood of repeat business.
- Thermometer: Social Media also helps you know what your customers think about your product or service. Invite people to post reviews and resist the urge to be defensive if the posts are negative. Apologize, post a brief response and improve. See what is hot with your customers and what is not drawing their attention. Ask your customers what they think of your product/service.
Social media is that which allows an organisation to communicate closer with their target audience while it enhances the organisation to increase its brand visibility. “Many organisations active on the social networking scene have direct links from their corporate websites to their social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Youtube and Twitter, and use these Social Media sites to promote brands and support the creation of brand communities” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).
This is why organisations have been spending considerable amount of money, time and other resources to garner the positive effects of social media to further their business opportunities both locally and internationally. Kaplan (2012) finds that sustainable growth of Social Media has been possible due to the wide spread awareness and availability of high speed internet and the reach and popularity of hand held mobile devices among the consumers. Internet and Social Media have provided enormous opportunities for people around the world to create, share and disseminate contents, search for information on a wide range of subjects and to keep up to date with the latest development in the business world (Öztamura & Karakadılarb, 2014).
Many organisations have recognised the importance Social Media plays in business development and have started exploring the unique qualities of the web and have promptly shifted their marketing strategies to e-commerce. Today the web and Social Media have become a place of prominence for products and services promotion and also to attract their target audience (Öztamura & Karakadılarb, 2014). The ever increasing popularity of Social Media has seen many organizations increasing their visibility and presence on multiple platforms of Social Media (Michaelidou et al., 2011).
Around 26% of consumers from the US suggest that they are willing to accept social networking advertisements that are based on their profile information provided in their personal profiles on the net (Neilsen, 2012). Despite all the increasing popularity and perceived value in brand development and organisational visibility, research on Social Media adoption by B2B organizations are still in its infancy with only a very limited studies exploring Social Media potential for marketing from an organisational perspective (emarketer, 2013). Even though there are a few literature elaborating the usage, barriers and metrics of Social Media marketing and its influence on business potential business ideas, perhaps avoiding potential flops or missteps.
These studies have considered various aspects of why consumers consider Social Media to be so important in their day to day life and what are the factors that drive them to actively engage in online activities. Additionally, other studies (Berthon et al., 2012), (Geehan, 2010), (Jussila et al., 2014), (Kusera, 2012) have explored the tangible and intangible benefits of social media in effective marketing like the influence it has on the consumers decision making process.
Social Media has almost become a companion to many people in general and consumers in
particular and this has also emerged as a very powerful medium for consumer communications.
Many organisations use this status quo of Social Media to leverage their business standing in the industry as well as to enhance their organisational visibility. “It is vital to build a viral campaign as well as an online word of mouth marketing (WOM) campaign which can lead to the creation and reinforcement of trust which can overcome any reluctance from the would be consumer”(Miller & Lammas, 2010,p.5).
According to Leong & Gligorijevic (2011,p.2) “The Social Media platform has given credence
for consumers to share their experiences in their social networks and also to review the
recommendations given by others on products and services” In order to develop trust, elements
like proper communication channels and context of messages are very crucial as this will enable prospective customer and company relationships (Gligorijevic, 2011).
The broad effect of Social Media in organizational performance can be seen in various domains such as marketing, finance, operations and corporate social performance since a lot of customer preferences are revealed through Social Media interfacing but the positive influence of Social Media on organisational performance can be determined only when the critical threshold of followers on the social networking is reached.
Financial performance indicators generally include sales level and growth, profitability, and stock price, whereas operational performance focuses on market share position, new product introduction, product quality, operating efficiency, and customer satisfaction. Corporate Social Performance (CSP) depends largely on the firm’s ability to establish honest relations with society, with special attention to reputation and brand”. Consider the argument of Paniagua & Sapena (2014) that the impact of Social Media is rampant in organisational performance when it comes to social capital, revealed customer preferences, social marketing and corporate social networking.
Many organisations have now started to build and maintain Social Media public pages since they have realised the importance of Web 2.0 applications and the very idea is to improve the organizational social network salience, enhance the consumers interest in the organization as well as to build relationships with the online community (Parveen et al., 2015) and this has paved the way for social media growth as an important strategic tool among the organizations. Another distinctive characteristics of Social Media from the traditional media is that it can be both web based as well as mobile technologies hence it is important for organisations to consider using Social Media due to its wide and rapid acceptance among the consumers (Moua et al., 2013).
The wise usage of Social Media has positively contributed for improved organizational performance like the enhanced customer communication, improved customer service, better brand visibility, wider information sharing, better accessibility of information about the customers and competitors and the organisations have also experienced significant cost reduction in terms of advertising and customer service (Parveen et al., 2015). Organisations use Social Media to directly communicate with their customers and suppliers, for building relationships and trust, and also to identify prospective business partners (Y.C.Wang et al., 2016).
Just as a coin has two sides, Social Media has both its positives and negatives. Would we because a thing has negative sides ignore the good it has to offer? Definitely not. Nowadays, customers hang out on Social Media and competitive companies know that it is an effective way to build an audience and community in their business’s desired customer segments. Social Media platforms and apps are rapidly becoming the norm of how customers search for, find, and consume content. Which means that we as an organisation need to optimise our content for Social Media pervasiveness. A lot of companies have learnt to use Social Media platforms to drive traffic and ultimately increase organisational performance.
https://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda…/9783319444673-c1.pdf
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/role-social-media-organizations-30678.html
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