How Social Media Improve Business Marketing

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Essay ‘Social Media as Improvement of Business Marketing’
Robin de Veer / 2535783 / IMM / 23th of May, 2014

Nowadays, more and more businesses are active on the social web. This new step in marketing cannot be ignored and brings along new opportunities. Dong-Hun (2010) states that social media is an “open media for interactive communication led by normal people.” The success is that anybody is able to produce content and share it on social networks. Web 2.0 is generated and controlled by its users, and is based on openness, sharing and participation (Dong-Hun, 2010). The ‘digital word-of-mouth’ conversations are attractive for business purposes mainly because of its huge reachability and as cost-effective promotion tool. Both small companies and giant businesses profit from such advantages and therefore rely heavily on social media when it comes to marketing. But why is social media so attractive as marketing communications medium in the business industry? This essay discusses three fields in which social media can be an improvement for the business environment.
First of all, using social media gives companies the opportunity to reach its consumers better, but vice versa consumers also reach companies better. The kind of marketing used by businesses is called ‘viral marketing’ (Miller and Lammas, 2010). Viral marketing is a marketing approach trying to promote a product or a brand by means of existing social networks in such a way that it can be compared with a viral epidemic. This epidemic can spread very fast and to a more diverse range of people. Target groups such as teenagers can for example be reached more easily through viral marketing than through traditional types of media. Social media has provided consumers with thei...

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...ers to get a better insight into their own company.
To conclude, social media really is an improvement in the business environment, because both communication between buyer and seller, and between consumers can be intensified and executed more effectively, and because analyses on social media is a useful tool to continuously improve the company on several fields. Both small and large businesses profit from social media, because they can easily reach a huge amount of people (almost) without any costs. Social media is not seen as an alternative or simple marketing channel anymore, but belongs to the mass media now. Besides that, it is ‘the way’ to benefit from relationship building with consumers. With social media as new, successful instrument in the business environment, we are going from local Word of Mouth to a new era of global World of Mouth (Dong-Hun, 2010).

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