Social Networking Sites - Essay Example

?Social networking sites Social networking sites The e-business industry has substantially grown over the last few years.As part of the e-world, these businesses have efficiently increased their reach on social networking platforms. More and more companies are utilizing social networking platforms in various areas including customer support, marketing, increasing brand awareness, engaging with customers and attracting new leads. The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook are good for supporting business. This paper also discusses the potential threats of using networking sites for supporting business. Social networking sites are good for supporting business Social networking sites are good for supporting business primarily on enhancing marketing campaigns and improving customer service. Marketing: Making use of social networking sites for marketing could help small firms to broaden their reach to more consumers. Customers are essentially interacting with brands via social networking platforms, thus, having a strong social media presence on the internet is the key to tap into their interest. Social media marketing (SMM) is simply a type of internet marketing which implements a number of social media platforms/networks so as to attain marketing branding as well as communication objectives (Evans 2013, p. 19). In essence, SMM encompasses activities that involve social sharing of images, videos and content for the purposes of marketing. Companies have to first consider the objectives of their business before they start to create social media marketing campaigns. The marketer brainstorms about his/her goals by answering the following questions: who is the target audience? What does the business hope to accomplish with the use of social media advertising? Where would the target audience hang out, and how would they utilize social networking sites? What message does the business want to send to its audience using SMM? It is notable that SMM could help with several objectives including website traffic, brand awareness, conversions, interacting and communicating with key audiences, as well as creating a positive brand association and brand identity (Green 2013, p. 31). Carrying out marketing campaigns using social networking sites generally entails the following: planning – building an SMM plan is vital. The business needs to take into consideration keyword research and brainstorm content ideas which would interest the ideal customers. Content – consistent with other e-marketing areas, content is essential when it comes to SMM. The business should ensure that it offers valuable information that the target audience would find interesting. The business should make a variety of content by implementing infographics, videos as well as images besides content that is text-based (Evans 2013, p. 22). Blog – it is noteworthy that blogging is an imperative SMM tool which allow the business to share various content and information with the readers. Using blogs, the business can also blog about its recent social media events, contests and efforts. Tracking business rivals – it is generally essential to keep an eye on the competition as they could offer valuable SMM insight such as where to get links that are industry-related. They can also provide important data for keyword research. If the business rivals are utilizing a particular SMM technique that appears to be working for them effectively, the business can also do the same thing, but do it much better (Qing 2012, p. 38). Consistent Brand Image – the use of social networking sites for marketing purposes allows the firm to project its brand image across several dissimilar platforms of social media. Whist every platform has its own distinctive voice and environment, the core identity of the business should remain consistent. Links – whilst employing social networking sites for the purposes of marketing depends mainly on the business sharing its own original and distinctive content in order to gain devotees, fans and followers, it is also important to connect to outside articles. The business can link to other sources that offer valuable and great information that the target audience of the business would enjoy. Linking to external articles helps to improve reliability and trust, and the business might get some links in return. A business could employ different social networking sites for marketing purposes in accordance with each site’s distinctive environment. Different SMM sites call for dissimilar techniques, and businesses need to create a distinctive strategy tailored for every social networking site. Pinterest: this is the most recent trend with regards to SMM. The image-centered platform of Pinterest is perfect for retail, although any business could benefit from utilizing Pinterest for the purposes of social networking. Pinterest essentially serves to allow small firms to showcase their product offerings, whilst also developing the personality of their own brand with some distinctive pinboards. Facebook: Facebook’s friendly and casual environment often calls for an active SMM strategy which starts with creating a Facebook Business Fan page. The business managers general pay careful attention to layout since the visual element is an important feature of the Facebook experience. SMM for business pages centers on furthering the firm’s conversation with the audiences through posting videos, images as well as articles that are industry related (Evans 2013, p. 24). YouTube: this is a key social networking site for creating video content, which if effective could be a remarkable tool for SMM. Most firms often try to develop content with the primary objective of having the video go viral, although it does not always turn out that way. Businesses' could concentrate on developing instructive and practical how-to videos, which also have the added advantage of ranking on Google’s video search results. As such, video content is powerful with regards to SMM (Inci 2011, p. 12). LinkedIn: this is a professional SMM site. It is of note that LinkedIn Groups are an important venue that the business can use to enter into a professional dialog with individuals within the same industries and offers a place that the business can share content with like-minded persons. The enterprise can encourage its customers to give the business a recommendation on its LinkedIn profile. Essentially, recommendations will make the business to appear more trustworthy and credible especially for clients who are new. Browsing the LinkedIn section of Questions is also vital; giving answers will help the business to get established and earn trust. Twitter: this is the SMM tool which allows the business to broadcast updates across the web. The business can follow tweeters within its industry or related fields; in return, it will gain a steady stream of followers. Using Twitter, the business can mix-up its official-related tweets regarding the news updates, discounts and specials with some quirky and fun tweets mixed together. The business should retweet when a client has something nice to say concerning the business and it should provide answers to the questions of customers whenever possible. It is notable that making use of Twitter as a tool for SMM centers on communication and dialog, as such, the business should be sure to interact as much as it possibly can (Rollason 2012, p. 15). Google+: this is the new competitor of Facebook; it supports the same casual and fun atmosphere. Using this social networking site, the business could upload and share links, videos and photos and view all its +1s. In addition, the business could make use of Google+ circles that enable it to segment its followers into smaller groupings, allowing it to share some information with specific followers whilst excluding other followers. For instance, the business may create a super-fan circle then share exclusive offers and special discounts with that group only. Moreover, the business could host video conferences with Hangouts and take advantage of the Hangout feature in ways that are creative and fun. Some ideas of SMM include the following: if the business is a local bookstore, the owner could offer author video chats. If the business is a hair salon, the owners could host a how-to session on how to braid the customer’s hair (Qing 2012, p. 39). The business could invite its +1s to its Google+ Community. In essence, Google+ Communities would enable the business to listen into the feedback and input of its fans, which actually puts the social back into social media. Statistics indicate that 22 percent of all the time that people spent online in the United Kingdom in the year 2012 was actually spent on a social networking site. Statistics also show that some 70% of United Kingdom online adults actually trust a product or brand recommendations from their friends (Evans 2013, p. 9). This implies that such sites have a large audience that a business can reach. SMM helps the business to increase the awareness of its brand, build trust and authority. Customer support: Other than marketing purposes, social networking sites could also be employed to enhance customer service. Businesses pay attention to social networking sites in customer service primarily because customers are taking their opinions to the social media scene. Essentially, everything that consumers have to say regarding a particular brand would ultimately be posted on these websites, for instance recommendation, rant, rave, displeasure or compliment (Green 2013, p. 23). Given the millions of persons who have social media accounts, unsolved issues could have an immense effect on the brand of the business. Things can quickly go viral and customers are likely to spread bad word online regarding a particular brand, and many individuals will easily believe. This could tarnish the reputation of a brand and ultimately result in loss of clients. Excellent customer service with the use of social media will ensure that the business retains the trust of its customers. This can be accomplished mainly through online dialogue with customers, and responding to their questions and addressing their concerns (Rollason 2012, p. 52). Many companies are already succeeding from the use of social networking sites in supporting their businesses. Nike for instance, has more that 15.1 million fans on Facebook and nearly 2 million followers on Twitter. In spite of its size, Nike’s presence on social networking sites offers it a powerful human touch – responding to questions, providing advice, interacting with fans as well as sharing everything that the followers and fans may find interesting. Potential threats of using social networking sites for supporting business A medium available for the business to connect with its clients in a non-formal manner serves to create awareness and loyalty. However, social networking sites can leave a business impressionable to hecklers and hackers who leave a squeeze on the company’s new found success. Since social networking sites provide information regarding what the business is doing, they also offer a platform for generating spiteful negative comments which may hurt the reputation of the business. Nonetheless, such attacks can be easily controlled through social media marketing strategies as well as reputation management (Inci 2011, p. 11). Secondly, staff members of the business could make inappropriate comments on the social media account of the business. However, this could be addressed using a clear policy and training strategy. Appropriate delegation and trust are also important. The third potential threat is human error resulting in leaked corporate data. It is of note that some staff members could inadvertently post classified information regarding their jobs and the business on social networking sites, believing the information to be safe. The posted classified information might be regarding the present projects, upcoming plans or financial situation and could be very valuable to the business rivals. Strong user policies and information technology security education could prevent a corporate social networking site account from being compromised, something that would have negatively hurt the image and reputation of the whole business (Qing 2012, p. 19). Fourthly, targeted attacks through company workers: some staff members share a lot of information on corporate social networking sites. As such, they allow themselves to be the point of infringe of targeted attacks against the business. All personal information that they share could be collected by people with negative intents and be utilized to execute sophisticated social engineering attacks. Targeted attacks could have grave effects such as corporate espionage or even theft of intellectual property. Inci (2011, p. 33) pointed out that attackers usually utilize the trust factor that is normally associated with social media and execute social engineering attacks. The attackers can exploit these trusted networks in tricking victims – company employees responsible for updating the company’s social media accounts – into downloading malware such as worms and Trojans or sharing sensitive information. In general, the best technique for preventing the potential threats that come about as a result of a business using social networking sites is to ensure that the staff members are educated regarding security threats that are associated with social networking websites. The enterprise can also carry out a wide-ranging data and access control strategy so as to prevent loss of data (Qing 2012, p. 42). Conclusion In conclusion, social networking sites are good in supporting business. The various platforms of social media such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and Facebook allow the enterprise to promote its products to its followers, and in so doing increase sales volume. Additionally, by engaging and interacting with customers, these social networking sites are also employed by businesses to improve customer care by responding to the clients’ questions and addressing their concerns. Nonetheless, there are a number of potential threats of using these sites for business. These threats include: (i) acting as a platform where people with ill-intentions can generate spiteful negative comments which may hurt the reputation of the business; (ii) human error resulting in leaked corporate data; (iii) staff members of the business could make inappropriate comments on the social media account of the business; and (iv) malware attacks from external sources. However, these threats could be avoided by ensuring that the staff members are educated regarding security threats, and carrying out a wide-ranging data and access control strategy. References Green, A 2013, Social Media for Customer Service? Coventry, England: Springer Publishers. Evans, D 2013, Social Media for Business: What Can It Do For You? London, England: McGraw-Hill. Inci, D 2011, Dangers of Social Networking Sites for Businesses. Bristol, England: Penguin Publishers. Rollason, H 2012, Why Social Media Makes Customer Service Better. Liverpool, England: CRC Press. Qing, LY 2012, Top 5 Social Networking Business Threats. Edinburgh, Scotland: Prentice Hall. Read More