Social Media Use in Small Business

The use of social media marketing has become a standard way in which organizations advertise their products or services. Social media marketing allows consumers to have immediate access to other consumers reviews or to post a review about a product or service. There is engagement between the company and the consumer (Evans, Dave 2010). Social Media emerged in the late 1980’s when websites such as Prodigy, Compuserve and America Online. Prodigy was first of it’s kind and was known as a ”consumer online service”. Half of the page is devoted to advertising. Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Hi5, Bebo and Orkut are all social media platforms that are utilized as platforms today.

One of the key roles of social media from a marketing perspective is the development of a client based platform. It is becoming an increasingly important part of any business’s marketing. Businesses can utilize existing online platforms to build networks of current and potential clients. By being active online allows businesses to connect with their customers in innovative ways to become a trusted source of information and convey the passion they have for their industry.

Social media is not new. Facebook has been around since 2004, YouTube since 2005, and Twitter in 2006. What is new is how social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are affecting the way businesses market their products and services. Never before in our history have consumers been able to communicate so effortlessly with each other and with the businesses they frequent. Never before have businesses been able to interact and react to customer feedback so quickly and efficiently. However, just because businesses have the ability to use social media for their marketing and advertising efforts, does not necessarily mean they should. This paper intends to

Companies usually tend to give attention to specific groups of people in which they take advantage of by attracting them to different trends that they could follow. Lopez mentions how Facebook and Twitter has control over social networking, stating that “Last year, over a billion people had Facebook accounts. Twitter routinely logs similar numbers. In short, each of these “services” draws half of all estimated internet users”(484). Looking at how Facebook and Twitter have made a great impact on society, Lopez discusses how these industries have taken advantage of the web to attract people by the idea of social media thus creating a gap between those who are involved in it and those who aren’t.

Businesses use platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook as a modern tool to share information with their customers. Facebook offers the option for businesses to create a fan page for their company or product. Twitter allows the use of 140-character posts that users can follow, tweet, or retweet. Blogs are less commonly used, but allow businesses to write in journal type format. YouTube offers a video-library to its users with millions of viewers around the world. There are many other types of social media but most of them follow similar general communication capabilities. Utilizing these

We cannot deny how big of an impact social media has on our lives now, not only on people but businesses too. It has opened a whole new door to the business world and given them a big opportunity to interact and attract a larger amount of customers. It’s given us a new and faster way of communication by exchanging pictures, stories, news, blogs, online discussions, etc. In exchange businesses have benefited by a long shot just by the click of a button. With the help of the Internet a company no longer is dependent on a particular customer base to survive because now it can reach out to a worldwide audience within seconds. It’s imaginable the countless business attributes of all social media to this day and still is growing. Social media

Unlike small businesses in the early 20th century, small businesses today can greatly benefit from social media platforms. Not only can businesses run their own pages online, they can pay for ads that promote their product in a unique and novel way. For example, social media can allow a smaller business to grow on their chosen platform (such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and more) and increase the amount of potential customers that view their product(s) or service(s). Everyday, there are millions of things

The marketing industry is an elaborate network that links companies to their consumers, primarily through written communication. The main objective of marketing is to identify trends and patterns in consumer behavior, and utilize the data to influence consumers to purchase more goods. From a macroenviroment standpoint, the general conditions of a market are heavily dependent on global environmental factors. The most significant factor that influences the markets today is technological advancements. Since the release of Facebook, Linked-in, Twitter, and Myspace in the early 2000s, the number of people using social media has increased to over sixty-five percent. The ever-growing dependency on social media platforms, has given marketers the tremendous opportunity to further market potential consumers. Social media marketing is a specific form of marketing that focuses on producing ad content that social media users will post on their own networks. This particular marketing technique is effective because ads and content are created, based on what personal information users post on social media. Firms and organizations that advertise their brands on social media are more likely to increase their customer base and annual revenue. By doing so, companies are able to increase exposure of their brand and widen previous hidden, customer bases. As a marketer, the fine line between right and wrong is often blurred. The amount and

In today’s business world, social media is being discussed on a daily basis. This phenomenon has taken over the marketing and advertising industries and has changed the way they handle their efforts to attract customers. There is a big misunderstanding that social media are only popular networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, but as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, social media are “forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and micro blogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos).” The rise of these online communities has given companies an opportunity to engage in conversations with their customers. This in

The purpose of this report is to show that even though some state that Social Media has fallen short of their expectations, it is actually good for business, given that it enhances the visibility of their brand and helps businesses stay connected to potential customers.

Small business social media starts with making the decision to be part of the conversation. Not as easy or cut and dried a decision as one may think. What are the factors involved in this process? The pros and cons?

For this paper, assuming that I am a small business owner, I will examine the power of doing so through various means of social media. Each site I use will be broken down, and I will give an in-depth look as to what techniques and approaches used for promoting my brand. Let’s take a look, starting with the company and its mission.

For decades now Silicon Valley has been the capital for major US technology firms and has become a thriving ecosystem for innovation. Household names in tech ranging from Apple to WhatsApp continue to drive innovations that improve or replace today’s major industries and business practices. Although many start-up companies fail to gain traction or widespread success, a handful of companies have risen to world-wide success and multi-billion dollar valuations at a pace never before seen in business history. The well-known social media company Facebook has built a value of over $245 Billion dollars and the car service phone application Uber has seized a notable share of the taxi cab market although neither company existed 12 years ago. These rapid innovations and a general culture of innovation are overthrowing well-entrenched incumbents and revamping the structure of a diverse array of markets. Large, successful firms that fail to adapt their products, business models, and strategies will inevitably decline at hands of small disruptive competitors. Destructive innovation, however, is not a new concept. Technological advancement has been the cornerstone of growth for most economies and particularly for the United States for hundreds of years. Disruptive innovation and growth leads to the reallocation of value amongst firms within any given sector and between the sectors of the greater economy.

The all encompassing Internet and more recent evolution of Social Media have not only fundamentally changed how corporations communicate internally, but also enabled before unimaginable methods of reaching a global marketplace. Unlike never before, even small businesses are now able to reach beyond their limited local market to a vast consumer base. As previously mentioned in regards to internal communication, the Internet has provided a medium for businesses to instantly reach a global market.

Utilizing social network sites to market is extremely inexpensive as well as effective. Social media enables small businesses to overcome the challenges of limited budget, lack of expertise, and positioning against larger competitors. Small businesses are not the same as big businesses and therefore cannot be expected to have the same marketing resources. Competitive advantage often has to be sought from other sources and by other means. Several models of marketing exist that provide guidelines for businesses to survive and grow. However, marketing theory that a large organization uses cannot be generalized to a small business which has different characteristics and requirements. As a consequence, small firms are moving from conventional marketing practices towards more affordable, interactive, and integrated marketing.