humanized. In other words, people feel more comfortable interacting with the companies, because on social media, businesses can act like a human being. This brings a great advantage since people tend to do business with people like themselves and not with a company. In addition to that, researches have shown that a high number of social media followers have a tendency to improve trust and credibility for companies. 5.
While being more informed, employees can create a good public relations through the work they are doing. By knowing the current events they can start to better incorporate it in their daily work, providing people with sense they are buying a business with good workers and long staying power. Social media is a great marketing tool and when it is used properly, can increase a company’s image and popularity. There are more than 140 million users of Twitter and more than a 1 billion users of Facebook (600 million of whom can access it through smart phone) [10]. People are more likely to buy when they have received customer reviews and/or recommendations from friends/family; having social media can help companies to take advantage of this phenomenon [11].
Social network sites during the last decade are considered to be one of the greatest technological developments worldwide. Harsh Agrawal 2014 defines social media as an “interactive dialogue between organizations, communities and even an individual”. The use of Internet gives you a great advantage as an individual as you can easily communicate with your friends, and at the same time it makes it possible for organizations to promote their business in different parts of the world using different online platforms . Consequently, from an individual’s point of view, social media can be described as a powerful and dynamic way to connect people by allowing them to share and exchange personal information. At the same time business perceive social media as a powerful marketing tool that can be used to contact consumers.
Its fundamental impact to the society is to create connections and relationships between people. For businesses social media can be used for marketing purposes. It helps build the brand of any business therefore making it more attractive to customers, current and previous employees (Edosomwan, Prakasan, Kouame, Watson & Seymour, 2011). Businesses are able to use social media to share more about themselves and value to customer, provide support for customers and customers can also provide feedbacks on their product making them feel involved. Facebook which is one of the most popular social media platform is seen as the most important marketing platform for businesses based on responses from marketers worldwide.
Increased communication for organizations fosters brand awareness and often, improved customer service. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns. Markets, especially for products aimed at young people, social media are extremely important (Langley, 2009). Social media networks are fantastic resources for businesses of all sizes looking to promote their brands online. The platforms themselves are free to use, and they also have paid advertising options specifically for brands that want to reach even more new audiences.
An advertisement that usually seen on the internet are also considered as digital advertising (Sugget, 2015). It is the main source of revenue for the internet as it entertains consumers to utilize their marketing products. More marketers tend to make innovations in advertising. From interactive advertising to digital adverting, economist find more efficiency and effectiveness through digital advertising. Because of innovation of technology, people were to get involved to the changes in modernization.
The rate of advertising on Facebook has grown since 2010. The companies reach target audience through pages, groups, direct tags and advertisement panels appearing in news feed. Advertisements visible to the users are based on the user’s browsing history and profile information available on Facebook. Advertising on Facebook helps businesses build lasting relationships with people and find new customers. It is a preferred platform because of its wider user base, easy accessibility and cost effective.
Moreover, as online purchasing trend is increasing, adoption of effective online marketing strategy is important for businesses as it is the means of reaching millions of customers all over the world. It is noticed that online marketing strategy influences the customer buying behaviour either positively or negatively (Dennis, et al., 2009). This is because customers grab the image of the brand as it is shown to them on the online media. There are some of the characteristics of online customers, which include direct information seekers, bargain hunters, undirected information seekers, directed buyers, and entertainment seekers. It is important for the organisations to consider these characteristics within their marketing strategy so that larger amounts of customers are attracted.
Impact of Social Networks in Business A. Jayakumar B. Ramya Abstract Social Networking is used for all business activities. Social Networking has offered a large variety of new opportunities for companies to promote their brand, products and build relationships. Businesses using social networks have become the latest trend, to connecting with each other and talking about their experience, sharing their opinion about products and services. Social Network is part of the global marketing. Its cheap costs and high promotional effects.
Social Media Marketing can be done by two ways one is adding social media links to the content and second is promoting activity through social media by updating statuses, blogs, and tweet. With the help of Social Media Marketing tool companies are getting direct feedback from their customers about the products and services. In Social Media Marketing, companies use online videos, photo sharing, news sharing, blogs, wikis, and posts on social networking sites to reach targeted customers. Need of Social Media Marketing: 1. To reach a large number of customers in a more spontaneous way without paying large advertising fees.