Analysing the Impact of Social Media On Businesses in the Last Decade
The popularity of social media has led to the opening of a new avenue – digital marketing, which uses different digital platforms to promote a product or service. Social media marketing is a part of the digital marketing umbrella that markets products and services on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Popular brands like Citi Bank and Walmart have included social media marketing in their marketing plan. Simultaneously, many brands are contemplating adding digital marketing to their promotional and advertising strategies while most of them have already added it. There are many positive and negative impacts of social media on businesses, which we’ll discuss later in the article. Furthermore, we will evaluate the impact of social media on hospitality, restaurant businesses, and other industries.
What is the Impact of Social Media on Businesses?
With more than 4.5 billion people using the internet worldwide, business organizations have found digital marketing a potential advertising tool that can help them reach their target audience effectively. From restaurant recommendations to grammar lessons, people use the internet to find solutions to their problems. Here’s how social media is impacting businesses.
1. Brand loyalty
Every business strives to reach a state where customers choose their brand over competitors sheerly out of trust. Brand loyalty is a state where the customers have complete faith in the brand, and they purchase the product or service without any persuasion. Brand loyalty occurs when a company forms a fruitful and honest relationship with its consumers.
Social media offers a platform for a company to interact with their customers and form a sacred bond, making social media marketing an important part of digital marketing. It eliminates the middlemen (retailer, wholesaler) between brand and customer, making communication precise and clear.
2. Easy communication
Initially, brand-customer interaction was limited to a yearly event hosted by the company to launch their new products. However, with the advent of social media, brand and customer interaction has become more frequent, easy, and quick. Today, customers can reach out to their brand through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Besides sharing grievances, customers can provide real-time feedback about a product or service without a hassle.
3. Difficult to erase the effects of an offensive post
Nothing can be clocked on the internet. For instance, a hurtful tweet or post shared by a brand on social media cannot be erased from the collective memory of customers because the recall value of social media users is more than other mediums. As a result, many businesses suffer losses due to these blundersome activities on social media.
4. Increased customer power
In social media marketing, the customer has more power over the brands. Customers have a voice that resonates with the masses. Social media gives customers the ability to publicly share their views about a product without the fear of trial. It takes away the power of influence from businesses and empowers customers. So, while promoting their product or services online, brands need to be more conscious.
5. Attract a bigger audience
Social media is a platform that everyone across the globe uses. Social media marketing enables you to attract customers from different parts of the world, helping your business expand globally with less set-up cost, proving to be a cost-effective digital marketing technique. Moreover, the platform transcends boundaries and connects you to your customers.
6. Competition
Social media marketing is a competitive industry that pushes everyone to do their best. It also encourages brands to work effectively and productively to attract maximum customer attention.
7. Creates word of mouth
Social media helps in spreading the word about a business quickly and effectively. Qualtrics (a business firm), in research, revealed that 72% of people read online reviews before purchasing a product or service. So, businesses can leverage word of mouth to increase their sales and form a special bond with new customers.
8. Reducing marketing and promotional costs
Social media marketing applies the concept of targeted marketing and advertising; therefore, it creates maximum brand awareness among the target audience at less cost. It also reduces operating costs and increases the profit margin of the businesses.
Impact of Social Media on Different Industries
Digital marketing is a new marketing tool that is used by various businesses for promotion and advertising. Social media platforms are used to attract new customers and form a special connection with existing customers. Here’s the impact of social media on different businesses in the past decade.
Impact of Social Media on the Hospitality Industry?
The hospitality industry is a service industry that transports customers to a world of calm and peace. The industry functions on word-of-mouth publicity and the advent of social media have brought great prospects for the industry. Social media has increased rapidly due to the trust, influence, reputation, and relationship between the brand and the customers. Therefore, social media largely has a positive impact on the hospitality industry.
Impact of Social Media on entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship has increased multi-folds due to social media. Billions of people actively use social media every day, creating many opportunities for entrepreneurs to promote their products or services. Moreover, social media marketing is cost-effective and efficient, which reaps in tons of profit for entrepreneurs.
Interestingly, entrepreneurs also use social media to connect with customers and titillate them with umpteen offers and benefits. They also use social media marketing for creating product awareness and developing customer-brand relationships.
Impact of social media on the Restaurant business?
Digital marketing is revolutionizing the restaurant industry. It amplifies the restaurants’ products and services to potential customers, yielding positive results. Social media marketing also helps build a brand image for restaurants striving to create a distinctive name in the industry.
Impact of social media marketing on small business
Small businesses are reaping the benefits of social media. The new platform has given small businesses a medium to interact with their customers and increase awareness about their products. It has also helped small businesses to build a peculiar brand persona among their target audience.
Social media is an open forum that transcends national boundaries. It helps small businesses to serve international customers and diversify their customer base, creating a positive impact on small businesses. Social media marketing is proving to be a cost-effective and efficient marketing medium for such businesses.
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