The Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Social Networks in Business

Question: Discuss about Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Social Networks in Business ? Answer: Introduction Internet has captured around 30% of the international market and has around 2 billion consumers around the globe (Internet World Stats, 2017). With the increasing consumer trend of using internet to gain product information and buy products online has enabled the organizations to use social media marketing to promote their businesses. There has been an ongoing research by the various scholars to study consumer behavior and develop effective strategies to market products and brands through social media networks. With the increasing trend of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media networks, the organizations have been thriving hard to establish strong relationship with the consumers, for instance, Starbucks uploads the photographs of their customers on social media to maintain customer relationship. In spite of increasing usage of social media networks and its preferred use for businesses, it has some disadvantages that could affect the performance of businesses. The report would thus, aim to discuss advantages and disadvantages of using social media networks in businesses through a literature review. Social Network The authors Xiang and Ulrike (2010), defined social media as internet based applications comprising of consumer generated content that also includes media impressions. The consumers could easily post, tag, blog and perform other functions through various tools and applications of social media. The study conducted by authors also revealed that social media has a great influence on the mind sets of consumers. The authors Asur and Bernardo (2010), defined social media as an online platform for the people to develop content, share it with their friends, bookmark it and develop their social network. The most popularly used social media networks include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg and other social platforms. The authors also stated that social media has influenced the public trends through their ease of use, speed and accessibility. According to the authors Agichtein et al (2008), social media is considered to be the source of rich content with variety of information sources. According to Alhabash, Juan, and Syed (2017), social media facilitates the development of brand and product. The authors also stated that with the help of social networks, the gap between advertising, marketing and public relations has dissolved and the organizations are easily able to develop relationship with their customers by connecting with them through their profile. The authors also argued that traditional marketing methods involves a lengthy process of developing strategy and then executing them, on the other hand social media merges all strategies including public relations, advertising and offline strategies to be able to reach the potential target customers. Social media takes into consideration the consumer behavior and therefore, the focus is on content generation that has the most positive impact on the thinking pattern of consumers. According to Mangold and David (2009), social media has become an integral element of promotional mix for the companies. The authors stated their point by saying that companies are able to have a direct interaction with the potential customers. They also argued that social media also provides platform for the customers to have a direct discussion that is a challenge for the companies for which they must develop effective strategies to control the consumer discussion. The authors Knoll and Schramm (2015) also revealed the importance of user generated content for social media. Their paper construed that the consumers are more likely to be influenced by the content that has been shared by someone from their own group and social network instead of some unknown and complete stranger. Advantages of Social Networks in Business According to Alhabash, Juan, and Syed (2017), social media networking is one of the most prominent methods of marketing for businesses. The businesses are easily able to promote their brands and product by blending the concept of advertising, public relations and marketing by directly connecting with the customers. The authors also revealed that user generated content plays an important role in influencing the minds of the consumers. The companies can easily promote their products and brands through videos, graphics and other forms of visuals. The author also emphasized that through social media network, the businesses can easily target large number of customers without making a huge investment. The authors Xiang and Ulrike (2010), revealed through one of their study that social media play a significant role in online tourism industry. The consumers are able to plan their trip using search engine. Further, the consumers are also able to share their experiences on the social media by uploading their stories, comments, pictures and short videos. Thus tourism industry has benefited through wide use of social media and attracted huge number of customers through ease and convenient services. The authors Asur and Bernardo (2010) argued that social media could also help to predict future outcomes by analyzing the large data available on the network. The authors research revealed that business could be predicted for box movies using Twitter social network. Twitter is a micro-blogging network that has become popular and has tens of millions of users actively present. The consumers are likely to discuss about a movie on the Twitter with their friends and colleagues. The research revealed that real world outcomes can be easily construed from the ongoing discussion on Twitter and around 3 million tweets on Twitter were analyzed to assess their impact on Hollywood Stock Exchange. The findings construed that there is a direct relation between the amount of attention a topic is given on the Twitter and its revenue collection and ranking in the future. Thackeray (2008) stated that social networks helps to establish long term relationship with the customers through user generated content sharing, bookmarking, social networking and syndication. This enhances the promotional methods of the businesses as the consumers share their experiences and opinions at very fast pace. Thus, the companies would have direct access to their consumers and would not have to depend on the traditional channels. The author Shashi (2012) also stated that social networks enhance customer engagement by integrating the concept of relationship marketing in the process. The customer engagement cycle is enhanced by integrating connection, interaction, retention, loyalty, advocacy and engagement to develop delighted customers, loyal customers and transactional customers. Disadvantages of Social Networks in Business The authors Vance, William and Robert (2009), argued that in spite of several opportunities for businesses provided by social media, it has certain challenges for healthcare industry. The authors specifically emphasized on the authorship of the content. They strictly stated that many a times sources are not provided by users and most of the time users share their personal experiences that could have a negative impact on the performance of the businesses. For healthcare sector, the authors construed the factors authorship, attribution of information and patient privacy. It becomes a huge responsibility for the hospitals to ensure sound medical advice to the consumers through social networks. The authors Macnamara and Zerfass (2012) pointed out that social media has a challenging communication management level in Europe and Australia. The organizations have to deploy the concept of communication controlling that conflict with the practices of social media. Further, the organizations have to also take care of methods deployed in consumer engagement through social media and needs to be in accordance to the laws and interests of stakeholders. According to Kaplan and Michael (2010), social networking is commonly used by the youngsters as they are excited to use the latest technology. The youth are more likely to attract by the latest technology as compared to the adults because of their adaptability and flexibility. When Instagram was launched, almost every youngster signed up for it. Thus, social fails to target a large number of customers including adults, business professionals and executives. The authors also argued that it becomes difficult for them to control and monitor each and every activity of the consumers on social media. Thus, the consumers could also defame the name of the company through negative reviews and comments. This could tarnish the image of the company and influence the businesses. A negative feedback and review by a client may be due to clients fault or some other unavoidable factors, but would spoil the brand name of product or company for a long duration and it becomes difficult to change the min dset of the customer Conclusion Social media has acquired a large market share of the world due to which it has become the preferred methods of communication and marketing with the customers. The report revealed that it is one of the easiest and fastest methods that blend advertising, marketing and public relations very effectively. One of the major advantages of social media is that it helps in customer engagement by directly reaching the customers. It also helps to instill loyalty and trust among the consumers. A company can easily promote its brand and product without incurring any cost that would have been required for traditional marketing methods. In spite of several advantages, social media could pose problems to the authorship of the content and could also tarnish the name of the businesses through negative comments by the consumers. References Agichtein, Eugene, Carlos Castillo, Debora Donato, Aristides Gionis, and Gilad Mishne. 2008. Finding high-quality content in social media. InProceedings of the 2008 international conference on web search and data mining, pp. 183-194. ACM. Alhabash, Saleem, Juan Mundel, and Syed Ali Hussain. 2017. 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