Social Media Marketing is a platform where people use networks to exchange information and it creates three ways for any organization and individuals in marketplace. The first one is it enables customers and companies to connect by providing different platforms like connecting communities, microblogging and networking related sites. The main aim of this connection is to build a healthy connection between organization and users. The second one is allowing actions to influence one another (Ravi & Kumar, 2021). It affects the decisions of customers and companies. The third one is providing customer-user relationships by using digital data and improving decisions in business for an organization. Various resources provide a large amount of digital data in different formats, such as images, videos, texts, etc. Market research and customer reviews use this data to take our business to the next level in the competitive world.
In initial days, social media uses Usenet networks that allow customers to post any information in Facebook groups. Then, the bulletin board organization allows users to sign in and do messaging but doesn’t allow for making friends online. After a decade, blogging was created by MiGente and BlackPlanet websites. Later posting pictures feature came into existence. Apple, Hi5,MySpace and LinkedIn were created widely and millions of customers used them. Then, marketers start using social media for business purposes and still so many companies are interested in using online platforms such as YouTube, Photobucket, Twitter, revver and Instagram, etc. instead of following traditional selling methods.
business using social media
Every business must follow some specific strategies to market their business using social media. A marketing strategy contains incorporated decisions that support the company while making tough decisions in marketing and creating awareness of brands, improving relationships with customers. Marketing strategy gives directions for companies to increase sales and improve business by giving some information such as knowing about customer details and their reasons for purchasing, how to present products in unique ways, what drawbacks occur in products and how to improve sales. Without making a strategy in marketing, some problems occur such as misunderstandings among customers while selling products to wrong customers, promoting products in the wrong way, etc. Marketing strategy is used to reduce those problems and develop business correctly.
Social media marketing helps organizations in the form of giving online advertisements, collaborating with influencers who have a certain following on social media accounts such as YouTube, Instagram and Facebook and with celebrity collaborations. Any startup business uses social media without any doubt about survival in competition because social media does not limit the companies based on large and small businesses and also does not restrict any user from accessing any product in online. So many users feel comfortable when using online platforms for investing in anything and purchasing products because it reduces the time of users, gives a lot of varieties of productsin one place, and provides customer reviews related to particular products that make customer feels satisfaction.
Advantage of Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is helpful for so many businesses such as shopping malls, healthcare, entertainment industry, retail industry, fashion industry, real estate and marketing industry etc. Shopping centers use social media to save from heavy competition of e-commerce and retail stores. Users see so many ads related to various products from different malls every day, but a few ads attract them to buy. Social media marketing provides a way for shopping centers to build healthy relationships with users, accept feedback from users, implement some methods to overcome those drawbacks and help to expand business.
social media marketing benefits
The entertainment industry is another industry that uses social media marketing benefits effectively. It helps to promoteshows or movies by creating interesting buzz about actors who acted in that particular movie. From gossip and celebrity news to latest movies, everything uses social media even magazines, tabloids, entertainment companies and media houses have Instagram, Facebook and Twitter profiles to share news about shows or movies. It offers directconnection between audience and industry in the form of creating gossip, promoting content and engaging audience. It also saves the time of people because they don’t need to waste their time by going to failed movies. Before going to movies, check for movie reviews on online platforms then decide whether to go or not.
For example, many people notice Spotify when they are using Instagram, YouTube and Fakebook. Spotify’s main aim is to increase listeners and users by using their Spotify app. For that, it designed its music and novel features creatively and earned users by posting ads on different social media platforms.
Another advantage of social marketing is it enhances the lead generation without concern about type of product, quality of product and services of product (Kumar, 2019). It offers thousands of unique facilities for leading generations such as appointments and sales are directly booked through profiles on social media, creating traffic channels to company websites to improve website performance, giving another chance for users to contact any companies,by liking, following and sharing company or users profiles or related data, communication is never lost.
Interacting provides easy access
Interaction is another benefit of marketing in social media. Listening to the radio and watching TV only provides information about particular things not considering users point of view. It makes some misunderstandings between organization and users. Interacting provides easy access to any information and increases users by engaging them with content on social media.Interaction occurs when simply clicking links and form fillings. With this interaction, people get more involved in content through websites.
Social media tools provide many uses, especially in marketing field to reach customers and increase sales. Free access, social communication, interactivity, target audience, customer service, quick returns, and increased search engines are some of the uses of social media marketing. So many companies use social media for marketing their business such as Blend Tec, Ushuaia Hotel, Jala, Dollar Shave Club, Rosh Ambo Baby, Fun Bowl, American Express, Infinity Strap, mint, slack, Airbnb, GoPro, Spotify, Wendy and innocent.
Social Media Marketing Challenges
Social media marketing changed the purchasing behavior of customers and the way of businesses strategy using social media because of their price flexibility. Product availability in one place and time saving. However, organizations face some problems in social media marketing such as online. Customer behavior is not understood by organizations and problems that are encountered by customers. Security, payment mechanism, reputation, advertising, trust, online catalogues and legal frameworks are some of the challenges that occur on the organization’s side. The problems for customers occur when they enter online websites to buy products, after purchasing products, payment, or delivery time.
Lack of trust, product quality, not clear policies about refund, privacy, logistics, delivery, extra charges, confirmation of payment. Not clear, hidden cost troubles, copyright, and trademark issues are some of the other challenges in social media marketing. The main reason for losing trust in social media platforms is online fraud in credit cards and online payments. Users share thoughts, information, opinions and invest more time in social media. Some businesses allow users feedback in the form of comments, likes and dislikes. Then some customers face problems when some people use abusive language and chat with their friends in comment section. To minimize this problem, marketers must use privacy guidelines.
accountability and ownership
Unclear accountability and ownership are some of the challenges in social media marketing. Companies try to follow the right directions to take responsibility for customer inconveniences. Policies and rules are not mentioned clearly and are not strongly involved in process allocation and differentiation of tasks. It is also challenging to identify, quantify, return and define product investments. The social media, inconsistency problems in department heads and investment problems arise related to accountability.
Social media promotions require integrated actions such as marketing, corporate communications, different sales, other departments and customer service. However, these departments need to develop applications in the noninteracting state. Experience of customers and redundant data collection among various channels (Shajitha & Jesintha, 2022). This leads to lack of integration and time approach. This results in a low generation of value.But not at all creating value because limited IT sources. To occur without identifying the key. The required for actions. The other reason for inconsistency in campaigning social media marketing is improper reporting of customer requirements. Improper practices in creating awareness, reach and not identifying metric systems for various levels lead to problems for marketers.
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