Using social web is probably the most cost effective marketing tool available that allowed businesses to manage brand reputation, advertise, served customer, broadcast, and network (Fine, 2010). The social media has become a widespread phenomenon and global trend because of the popularity of Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook (Hinchcliffe & Kim, 2012). In the recent study conducted by LinkedIn, 94% of small businesses use social media as a marketing tool and 49% use it for research to grow business (Weiss, 2014). The social media maybe cheap but it is not easy to implement. Many small business owners still hesitate to implement it because of lack of knowledge. Small business owners also fear the cost of time to be invested in social media. Implementing social media in business requires operational, technological, and cultural changes. It is a long term process that should be implemented with the overall marketing plan. (Fine, 2010).
Below are the suggested four main ways how small business owners can succeed using social media:
1. Listen to customers and audience
Small business owners should create a social media strategy not solely focusing on marketing and sales. While the main objective of marketing strategy using social media is about increasing sales, it needs to start with a conversation. It is a mistake to spend the majority of small business owners’ time promoting just about the business. There is a need for small business owners to listen to the customers instead of just sending out irrelevant messages to social media. Small business owners should not use social media to blast news and updates only about their business. Listening and responding timely to customers is the best way to build a loyal following ...
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...ieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-honigman/facebook-small-business-marketing_b_1987293.html
Lee, E. (2014, March 31). Three Easy Tips For Effective Social Media Marketing. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/sage/2014/03/31/three-easy-tips-for-effective-social-media-marketing/
Michaelian, B. (2013, January 17). New and Social Media Trends for Small Business in 2013. THE HUFFINGTON POST. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/britt-michaelian/social-media-small-business_b_2491821.html
Simonds, L. (2013, June 28). SMALL BUSINESS TIP OF THE DAY: Business Growth and Social Media. Time. Retrieved from http://business.time.com/2013/06/28/business-growth-and-social-media/
Weiss, G. (2014, February 13). This Is How Small Businesses Are Using Social Media. Entrepreneur. Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/231515#
The purpose of this report is to provide preliminary information to the audience about the way that the business exploit social media as a marketing tool for communication’s effectiveness, the related issues, challenges and suggestion for future entrepreneurially oriented improvements. Giving notice that the report considers the viability of the business in broad management and marketing terms only; it does not provide a comprehensive financial analysis of the proposed social media’s investment.
Stelzner, M. A. (2013). 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. Retrieved 02 28, 2014, from Social Media Examiner.com: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-industry-report-2013/
Social media has set in a new wave in the business world. As per the recent study carried out by Internet Advertising Bureau UK, a business having social media presence is likely to attract 80 percent more customers in future (The Guardian, 2013). Especially, for small businesses having limited time and budgetary constraints, it is important to chart out an effective social media marketing policy to give the required boost to the business expansion. There are different purposes for different small scale business organizations to use social media. Major ones are discussed holistically in the essay.
Before social media, people accessed the internet mainly to check their e-mails; they were physically social by meeting other people personally to communicate. Businesses were focused on using traditional mediums, such as TV, print, etc. to advertise their product and services. Nowadays, people have become virtually social; social media have made it easy for more meetings to be conducted through social networking rather than just meeting face-to-face. More and more businesses are investing a considerable amount of time and money to understand the use of social media and how it can benefit them.
has become much easier for companies given the new technologies available. However, the wider the span of audience a company tries to reach, the higher the cost of resources. Social media websites offer numerous tools and applications that could greatly increase the growth of small businesses and non-profit organizations and can be much more cost-effective [30]. Social sites can be used to network with organizations to help potential employees find employment and give corporate ...
“there are many benefits to social media that companies cannot ignore such as customer relationships, collaboration and market for market research .For business to business providers, employees and executives are the customer making social media interaction a necessity.”
Over these many years, both small and big business have begun to harness the compelling power of social media networks to talk about their business brand, engage customers, generate more leads and even ramp up product sales. But there are few mandatory rules that business owners should comply to if they really want to avoid going from social star to woeful person.
Jantsch, John. Let's Talk: Social Media for Small Business. 2nd ed. N.p.: Microsoft Office Live Small Business, 2009. 4-7. Web. 2 Dec. 2011.
Social Media and its Impact on Business, Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, volume 16 Number 3 p.79-91
Social media start as a very personal tool for users to communicate with their friends and closely related people. Soon after, business area have also take the advantage of this innovative way of exchanging information.
Naturally, B2C enterprises have swiftly woven social media into their business strategies. But their B2B counterparts are more restrained, using it as merely another conduit for public relations and marketing communications.
Among the billions of social media users, there is a percentage dedicated to businesses who use social media as part of their marketing strategy. The sheer number of people who use services like Facebook and Instagram on a daily
The writer finds social media is important in her current organization, Modern Business Concepts, Incorporated (MBC). With small business organizations such as hers, social media is important in spreading information on who the company is and what they do. Also as a business-to-business sales and marketing company, spreading the word is important in gaining customers and potential employees. Ucok (2014) uses research and experiments to prove how social media is essential to marketing. These platforms were essential in Ucok’s research, resulting in higher response with marketing campaigns proving “the importance of social media in marketing strategy and communication” (Ucock, 2014, p. 95).
The first advantage of using social media in business is increasing brand awareness. Social media can help business to build their brand awareness by increasing interactions with a business brand. Brand awareness means the total percent of a target people who know the company exists and what the company offers of products or services. When the brand awareness is increased, the possibility of buying is increased. Thus, efforts should be made to make the brand a part of the consciousness of customers. For example, Coca- Cola is one of the best companies that enjoy unusual...
Secondly, the social media has made it easier for businesses and business people such as bankers, business owners, brands, and even celebrities to communicate faster and to get things accomplished. Through social media interaction networks such as Twitter, Instagram, What...