Social Media as a Tool of Communication-Free-Samples for Students

Question: Discuss about the Advantages and disadvantages of using Social Network at Business. Answer: Introduction In todays ever changing market, the role of social media networks cannot be denied in business organizations like service industry or tourism organizations. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the advantages and disadvantages of using social networks in the business organizations. In todays scenario, promotional activities and marketing on social media is getting popular day by day as the cost is very low and with proper strategy an organization can aim high and experience a huge increase in the profitability. There are also some challenges in promoting and marketing in social media platforms and those are revealed in this paper in details. The paper also highlights how the organizations can overcome the huddles of challenges by implementing proper strategies in promotional and marketing activities on social media platform. Project objective The main objective of this paper is to portray whether the usage of social networks are beneficiary for the business organizations or not. Apart from that, this paper sheds light on the future prospects of using social networks as a tool in business organizations. In todays market it is undeniable that social networking sites are a huge platform to share the details of the products of any business organization, be it a tourism company or an organization from the service industry, or any store of apparels. It is a matter of fact that using social media as a tool can bring in many problems too in the organization and most of the business owners does not realize how worse can things get sometimes due to using social networking sites for marketing purposes (Van Dijck 2013). Thus the main objective of this paper is to highlight the basic advantages of using social networking sites for business purposes and the hidden disadvantages of it that can bring in severe harm for the organization. apart from that the paper also highlights the strategies that the managing body of the organizations should take up to fight the oddities they face in the activities like promoting and marketing on social networking sites. Project scope The usage of social networking sites in business organization is a common thing in todays world, and it is seen that many organizations have seen the advantages of this tool seeing the significant increase in profitability of the company or by noticing the graph of sales getting higher after using social networking sites as a tool. This is an undeniable fact that, in future digital marketing would take over any other marketing strategies as it is statistically proven that the users of social networking sites have been increased by almost 70 percent within last five years and the number of people with internet connectivity has also gone higher than ever (Walaski 2013). It is thus can be said that the future of marketing is in digital marketing, but the business leaders should thoroughly look at the advantages and disadvantages of using social media as a platform of marketing. Literature review The recent boom of social networking sites are bringing in new policies of marketing procedure and it is seen that various organizations are using social media as a huge platform to increase the salability of their products (Hays, Page and Buhalis 2013). This is because the cost of marketing goods in social media is way cheaper than marketing the goods in other platforms such as television, radio, hoardings and various other platforms. In the social networking sites the cost is very low and the organizations get a huge audience (Sigala 2013). This is the sole reason behind the he boost in marketing via social media websites nowadays, but, as they say, every rose has its thorns; promoting products in social media can bring in several issues in the organizations. The merits and demerits of using social media as a platform of marketing are provided below. Advantages The organizations eye the larger audience in the social media sites as twitter has 313 million monthly users, and Instagram has 500 million users currently. Apart from these, Facebook has the largest subscribers over 2 billion worldwide. Thus, it is evident that the business leaders should target the huge population to make their audience while promoting their products on social networking sites (Ukpere, Slabbert and Ukpere 2014). Apart from this the social media offers the audience to share their grievances or excitements or giving valuable inputs in the comments section and using that tool, organizations can update their way of selling or way of operation(Sashi 2012). Another huge advantage of social media marketing is that in most cases it is free of charges and there are some paid advertisement options and those can be a brilliant tool for promoting the products of a company (Hays, Page and Buhalis 2013). In most cases using social media the business leaders increase their brand loyalty, as it is been proven that in most cases, the people who follow the pages of a certain brand remains loyal in most of the cases (Young 2012). It is also a matter of fact that if a company continuously updates their pages with exciting offers and unique products the followers or subscribers of those pages would become more loyal towards the organization (Shih, Chen and Chen 2013). For an example, it can be said that, Nike owns a page in facebook and they continuously update their page with latest picture of their products and with exciting offers that would attract a huge population. Seeing these offers more people subscribe to their page and overall sales of the organization gets increased (Young 2012). Using social media as a platform of marketing the business leaders can get a increased traffic in their mother website bringing in more profitability for the organization. apart from this in social media platform the managers would get necessary customer feedbacks and they can amend their way of doing business accordingly for the further improvement of the organization (Lefebvre 2012). Social media also can become a tool for conducting market research for the managers of various organizations and they can chalk out their business plans using social media as a platform of marketing (Sashi 2012). By this the managers will be able to point out the opportunities and the matter of concerns for further business growth. Disadvantages Using social media as a platform of marketing can bring in many problems for the organization, such as in the specified pages in social networking sites people can post negative comments endangering the companys good will and reputation (Hays, Page and Buhalis 2013). At times, it takes a huge time to maintain a page in social networking site for an organization by making it highly interactive and popular. The companies should recruit some specialized employees to deal with these types of promotional works on social networking sites (Munar 2012). At times absence of proper strategies for social marketing can lead to reduced profitability for the organization and that may result in loss of reputation too. Some organizations may face some negative comments by some customers and out of rivalries some organizations may employ someone to post negative comments against specific organizations, as in the social networking sites with full liberty of expressing feelings anything can happen (Lefebvre 2012). On internet many unethical persons can hack the web pages and can spread several rumors regarding the good will and reputation of an organization. These kinds of activities can potentially ruin any companys reputation (Hays, Page and Buhalis 2013). If the management of any social media site is not up to the mark, the organizations would not see real improvements in this method and that may result in reduced profitability in some cases (Pierson 2012). Another huge issue that comes up in this case is problems related to trademark and copyright. Protecting copyright and trademark is one of the most important tasks of an organization as it is the sole representative of the intellectual property of any organization. When the managers intend to promote their organization on social media they must look after the copyright issues (Lesidrenska and Dicke 2012). Using social media as a platform via third party organization or by the organizations own media platform the managers should monitor that their copyright and trademark is exclusive and no one is misusing it. Apart from that another issue is theft of intellectual property; for an example, it can be said that, if an organization launch a product exclusively online and they promote the product, someone can copy the idea and launch it in another platform (Kent 2013). When an organization that belongs to hospitality or tourism or service industry post anything regarding their exciting of fers or some plans on the social networking sites, there is always a high chance of these ideas to get stolen. These are the cons of using social media as a tool for promotion and marketing. These things are becoming very common nowadays and the management body of the organizations must put in extra efforts to make sure it never happens (Hays, Page and Buhalis 2013). The most important issue faced in online promotion or marketing is the privacy and security issues. The managing body must ensure that no one violates the rules and regulations of the social medias privacy policies (Hoang and Pishva 2014). The organizations must invest a lot in technological advancements to protect their organizations security from unethical hackers as they can ruin the reputation of the organizations like anything. Thus, the management must hire someone who is experienced in dealing with these type of issues to get rid of such problems. (Communication Theory 2017) Discussion It is a matter of fact, that, marketing and promoting online raise some opportunities and challenges for organizations, as the targeted audiences get fragmented and proactive (Hays, Page and Buhalis 2013). On the other hand, it can be said that the audience can become more loyal towards the organizations lured by the exciting offers and discounts provided by the companies (Munar 2012). Marketing and promoting products on social media allows the organizations to collect data regarding the customers views, grievances, satisfaction and other feelings about their product, and reviewing all those they can improve their business operations accordingly (Baruah 2012). Along with it in todays market there are a lot of challenges waiting for the business organizations as they can face threats regarding copyright and trademark issues and they can often get embarrassed by the negative remarks of individuals on social media which can potentially harm their good will (Gambetti, Graffigna and Birag hi 2012). It is fact that promotion and marketing in social media is the future and no one can deny it feasibility in recent times, but the business leaders must not forget the threats they have to face due to these activities. It is a fact that marketing online on social media platform comes with many perks and challenges and the business leaders need to understand the matters and take steps accordingly (Hays, Page and Buhalis 2013). In todays market the more a company invests in promotional and marketing activities the more that organization experience increase in profitability, thus promoting and marketing online is getting more popular day y day (Baruah 2012). Conclusion Thus, to conclude, it can be said that, in todays market promotional activities and marketing on social media platform is immensely popular, and implementing proper strategies any organization can reach the height of success within a very short time. But, this rose also has some thorns and those are very sensitive issues to deal with, as any wrong step can prove to be hugely expensive for the organization as some threats from online marketing can ruin the reputation of the organization to the ground. It is a matter of fact, promotion and marketing on social media is the future and it cannot be denied that by these activities, any organization can reach up to the top in their industry. 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