Using of Social Media by Companies to Gain Trust Market Growth - Essay Example

Discuss and Illustrate How a Company Can Make Use of Social Media to Gain Trust, s and Market Growth Social media involves the use of Internet-based tools for sharing and conversing information between human beings. It is a modern medium for socializing, and it refers to a range of new Web 2.0 platforms. It is characterized by interactivity across multiple horizontal connections that produce in cumulative a variable, mutually generated user experience (Bocij & Greasley, 2006, 23). Social media is the modern trend of the business to link with the market without boundaries. The advent of the internet and internet-enabled portable gadgets such as laptops, smartphones, iPads, tablets, etc. have increased the presence of businesses and potential customers in the virtual global market. There are various social media where businesses and customers interact including Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. The social media has become the most trusted platform through which businesses can link with the customers because they can have deeper connection than any other traditional media. It is offering businesses with the unique opportunity to advertise their products and exploit their innovations to control their advertising campaign (Bocij & Greasley, 2006, p. 12). The global companies have acknowledged social media marketing is offering businesses with unique marketing opportunities and have exploited them with novelties to influence their advertising operations with social media marketing (Chaffey, 2006). This document examines various approaches in which the companies can use social media to gain trust, customers, and market growth. It also examines negative aspects of the social media to the business. Methodology and Channels There is increasing consumer expectations in regard to information delivery services and experiences in all aspects of a business cycle. Customers not only expect twenty-four hour information access, but they also focus on twenty-four hour customer service experiences that are inclusive of self-service preferences. They aim at exceeding the out-dated gatekeepers of system information when accessing any form of service such as banking, booking flight tickets and so on. All they need is transparent access of information they want in the right form whenever they need it. The most intriguing fact is that in the modern era information-seekers have great reliance on reviews of other users when making purchasing decision or when they want to access the services of certain service providers Chaffey & White, 2004). It is becoming a culture for the consumers to conduct online search of information about the products, services or organizations they intend to deal with before making actual decision. In case they have issues with products, services or the organization they may post the issue to elicit peer reactions about the issue. Therefore, the use of social media has become critical for the businesses intending to expand their operations and win customer trust. The social media is a platform providing avenue for conversation among peers, and this has significant influence on customer behaviour towards products, services, companies, etc. (Bergeron, 2002, p. 124). Organizations do not have to wait for a customer to post their concern for peer review that may otherwise open a window of opportunity for the critics to attack the credibility of the organization or products by posting negative comments. Organizations are making use of the social media platform to market their products and services by addressing customer issues to influence their decisions (Chaffey, 2006, p. 76). Furthermore, some organizations especially in the health sector is dealing are using social media to raise health concern among the users which have contributed to increase in customer visits to health facilities for health confirmation (Sumitha & Beegam, 2014). An example is the cancer awareness campaigns and free screening services that have increased global cancer awareness. The cost of preparing and developing social media campaigns may be equivalent to the cost of traditional advertisements. However, the cost of disseminating social media campaigns is absolutely low since social media platforms enable organizations to take advantage of the existing social structures virtually spread their messages through the existing social networks (Gupta & Lehmann, 2005, p. 54). The main challenge facing the organizations is the organizational capacity to respond to the varying conditions in the real time. Recent studies have shown that businesses are willing to commit more resources to increase their presence in the social media (Carbone, 2004, p. 37). Therefore, businesses should focus on developing content they use to attract and win the loyalty of the consumers. The social media offer businesses media technologies that can expedite online functionality and detect outlooks that enable the use of gathered data for developing services to meet customer needs. The social media offer users various opportunities for collaboration and social networking even on a single platform such that businesses can make use of it in a variety of ways. For instance, businesses can use YouTube, Facebook, blogs, etc. as a medium for broadcasting advertisements. On the other hand, consumers can link, review, remix and share the content posted in the social media hence creating value for the users (Carbone, 2004, p. 39). It is giving businesses an opportunity to carry out a demo on the usage of products at a lower cost than the traditional media. In addition, using social media as a platform for demonstrating products and services offered by the organization offer users a universal access because they revisit the media any time to view the content hence increasing its usage. Bearing in mind that many companies are targeting a global market, social media has helped organizations to increase coverage of the market because there are no geographical boundaries (Bocij & Greasley, 2006, p. 42). This has contributed to rapid growth of the small businesses that would otherwise not have managed to market their products in a wide geographical area. Businesses should develop strategies that will increase their presence in the social media and win a confidence of the users. However, they should ensure the content shared in the social media is accurate and up-to-date in order to add value to the customer and the organization. One of the goals of every business is to create value for the stakeholders by generating revenue for the shareholders and increasing customer satisfaction in a corporate responsible way. Business engage in various strategies that lead to increased sales, profit maximization and cost reduction as the best business practices (Chaffey, 2006, p. 85). Marketing is one of the most common strategies used by organizations to reach target clients and establish business relationship. However, the use of social media marketing has helped businesses reach out for a global market in an interactive way that leads to customer loyalty and more satisfaction (Bocij & Greasley, 2006, p. 76). Unlike traditional media, the social media is more interactive because it offers both businesses and customers with an opportunity to respond to various needs and resolve various issues amicably. That has become possible because the evolving trends in social networking sites is the idea of “real-time web” and “location-based” that offer users an opportunity to contribute to the discussion and broadcast contents as it is being uploaded (Cox, 2012. The companies can broadcast to the world what they offer and respond to the requests of the customers instantly (Carbone, 2004, p. 46). Marketers can stream their activities to the potential customers irrespective of their geographical locations including images, videos, words, etc. The social networks such as Twitter and Facebook are offering businesses an opportunity to build their brand image. Businesses are using social networking to create brand awareness, recruit competent workforce, as a tool for managing their online reputation, to learn about their competitors and emerging technologies, etc. (Gupta & Lehmann, 2005, p. 58). Furthermore, companies are using social networking sites to attract traffic to their online sites and encourage them to have discussions on how companies can improve the products and services to improve customer satisfaction. Businesses are using social media to create brand by creating high functioning sites or brand networking through which they can build consumer relationship. The organizations achieve this by linking customers to brand image on a platform that offer customers with relative content, ranking or score system and components of participation (Carbone, 2004, p. 49). Involving customers in designing products and services improves customer relationship and makes customers loyal to the company and the product. Through social media forum, businesses are always in touch with the customers understand the minds of the customers. They offer customers with the chance to decide what they want and how they want (Gupta & Lehmann, 2005, p. 64). However, organizations should be keen on what customers want and deliver their request in time. Preciseness and timeliness of businesses, when they are satisfying customer wants, play the critical role in marketing because develops and strengthen brand loyalty. Social media is becoming an effective marketing medium for promoting company brand through customer engagement (Varey, 2002). Organizations send messages or images on the social media in which they require viewers or consumers to share their opinions or experience with the product. Organizations can improve customer participation through social media because such involvement correlates firmly with the level of interactivity of the media platform and the tentative abundance of the interface. This observation has been made especially in the social marketing campaigns involving organizations that deal with fast foods and tobacco. Therefore, organization should focus on social media as a strategy for engaging customers interactively and encouraging them to participate by sharing their experiences through the platform. However, the success of the organization in their marketing campaign through social media platform will be determined by their ability to design messages in a more attractive way. The users of social media are interested in getting a lot of information within a short period (Bocij & Greasley, 2006, p. 112). They are not willing to spend time reading lengthy messages that sometimes are very boring. In most cases, they prefer short messages or videos that engage them passively. The social media such as Facebook offers users an option to upload video clips thus organizations can use such platforms to share their brand image with customers without creating boredom. The organizations can design various messages targeting specific clients to increase customer interaction. The use of videos through social media enable organizations to demonstrate to the customers the complex aspects of their products and services that otherwise could be difficult to explain through other means (Sumitha & Beegam, 2014). Increasing customers’ interactivity can increase brand loyalty since customers can get the information they need to address their concerns. It is worth to point out that organizations need to be careful with the information they release to the public because it can lead to success or failure of the organization depending on how it is perceived by its recipient. The organizations may have to train commentators who will be interacting with the public through social network (Cox, 2012). Alternatively, the commentators may have to seek the approval of the senior managers before releasing any content to the public. This is because the content sent to the public may have detrimental effects on the organization if it elicits negative reactions from the public (Carbone, 2004, p. 63). Furthermore, it is not possible for the organization to undo an erroneous message once it has been released to the public because it takes seconds to have the message circulation to several users of the media platform. However, the organization should be aware that customers have no time to wait for the lengthy procedure of relying on response. All they want is quick responses to their questions or comments or otherwise they will depart to other organizations that can satisfy their requirements instantly (Finnegan & Willcocks, 2007, p. 43). Therefore, organizations should focus on winning customer loyalty and strengthening their marketing campaign by responding to the clients concerns instantly and precisely. The interaction between customers and organization creates an opportunity for business to address customer concerns about the organizations products and services (Bocij & Greasley, 2006, p. 126). It is the most effective means through which the organization can win customer loyalty by demystifying the customer worries. Studies have indicated that almost all businesses have various social media accounts through which they connect with the customers and employees. For example, in 2011 about 75% of the small businesses were using social networking sites. However, charitable organizations were majority users of the social media. 69% of those businesses were sending updates to their clients, and 54% of them were monitoring customer feedback about their businesses (Cox, 2012). The use of social media has resulted in global interaction of businesses with other businesses and the customers. Businesses make use of this contact to learn about their competitors and customers. The information about competitors enables businesses to improve the features of their products and quality of services. Though the information about competitors was hard to obtain initially this is no longer the case because various businesses have opened up to their clients through social media to win their loyalty. Businesses, on the other hand, have gained much information about their competitors from this platform. They should use information about the competitors and requests made by the customers to strengthen their brand hence increase customer loyalty (Finnegan & Willcocks, 2007, p. 67). Therefore, they can win customer loyalty since they can compare the products and services of the competitors and establish the ones that best suits their needs. The use of social media enables employees in the organization to exchange important information that contributes to the improvement of products and services and growth of a market (Gupta & Lehmann, 2005, p. 73). For example, the Dell employees use LinkedIn for collaboration and exchange of ideas as well as recruiting competent employees from around the globe. Therefore, organizations should use the social media platform to increase their competence by hiring innovative employees who are capable of delivering customer satisfaction (Bocij & Greasley, 2006, p. 164). It is also an efficient method of sharing information between the employees within the organization and keep them updated. Furthermore, most organizations such as Dell are using social media such as Facebook to create brand awareness through community commendation by using applications that promote easy sharing of information. The applications have led to increased sales and strong brand image in the market. Therefore, social media platform is being used by the organizations to drive sales and strengthen customer loyalty through a use of various applications that improves customer experience. Some companies have expanded their market while others have improved customer loyalty through social media (Varey, 2002). For example, Zappos, Wal-Mart, P&G and Ford companies have significantly improved their market coverage and customer loyalty by focusing mainly on online marketing including a use of social media. Dell Company is another good example of an international company that has drawn significant benefits from the social media marketing (Jill, 2002). As a multinational information technology-focused company, Dell markets and provided computers and technology related products and services. They have succeeded in building relationships around the globe with improved customer services. Between 2007 and 2011 Dell Company reported revenue of $3million related to social marketing through Twitter alone. The company has a social media account with applications that enables a user to design a custom laptop and share the resultant product with Dell by connecting with their online store (Cox, 2012). In addition, they have a Facebook account that enables their fans to connect directly with its customer service. Dell focuses on customer engagement and brand monitoring through its social media accounts. Also, as of 2011 the Dells videos in YouTube channel had been reviewed about 4.3 million times. It is evident from the above cases that social media is one the best approaches for the organizations to increase brand loyalty and increase marketing. Advantages Social media offers businesses with a large international community of potential customers of their products and services. The presence of organizations and customers in the social media platform opens up opportunities for businesses to share information about their products or services to the customers. The social media also enable customers to share with their colleagues everything they know about the certain brand (Carbone, 2004, p. 74). Therefore, the use of social media has increased brand recognition among the users in a global market. Social media offers the businesses opportunity to convert customers by making posts and sharing product features with the customers (Bergeron, 2002, p. 193). Since companies are continuing to diversify their products and services in order to improve customer satisfaction, social media platform offers them a chance to update their customers about the new products and share experiences on the product usage. Therefore, the presence of businesses in the social media offers an opportunity to strengthen brand loyalty among the customers and to grow the number of their clients. With increasing number of users of social media businesses cannot afford to lose the opportunity to address customer issues regarding the products, services or the organization (Chaffey & White, 2004). Businesses are the platform to attract more traffic to their social network and engage them in their brand. This has resulted to continuous growth of the social network hence growth in the brand recognition. The use of social networking enables consumers and businesses to form a link at a relatively low cost compared to the traditional medium of advertisement. This has become very beneficial especially to the small businesses and entrepreneurs who are focusing on expanding their businesses (Bocij & Greasley, 2006, p.234). The social network acts as a tool for managing customer relationship for the companies dealing with products and services. Businesses use banners and text advertisements to promote their products and services to the clients around the globe. Through the use of data mining companies can improve their sales and revenue. This is where the companies are using the social medial to develop customer profiles containing customer online behaviour and demographics (Bergeron, 2002, p. 193). For example, businesses are using network analysis software that assists them to filter the influx of data in the social media for specific client or company information. Through the use of this software companies can track the websites used by a social site users such as Facebook outside the social networking sites. Organizations achieve brand loyalty through offering products or services that meet customer satisfaction. The use of social media enables businesses to obtain customer feedback cost effectively (Carbone, 2004, p. 83). The organizations then make use of the customer feedback to improve the products and services according to the customer requests. Therefore, by meeting customer satisfaction or addressing customer issues, it can be argued that social media has enabled organizations to build customer loyalty to their brands. Disadvantages The use of social networking has resulted from social overload due to bulk of information available for the consumers. With all businesses trying to win the loyalty of the online prospects it results in confusion since consumers have to spend much of their time to filter the information of different companies (Bocij & Greasley, 2006, p. 192). It is likely that consumers can get misled especially if they do not have adequate time to analyze the contents of the information offered by various companies or if they lack adequate knowledge to do company analysis. Furthermore, since companies are out to win consumers, they can give exaggerated information about what they offer to the detriment of the consumers. There is a rising concern about the privacy of the users of social media. With increasing number of users, social media the concern is that users might be giving too much private information to the strangers. Although some social networking sites such as MySpace and Netlog work with law enforces to protect their clients against breach of privacy, the users remain exposed to various risks of privacy of personal information (Mehrabi, Islami & Aghajani, 2014). The issue is aggravated by the fact that some corporations fetch personal information from third parties in order to use it for assessing customer behaviour and make the decision on creation of customer satisfaction. This has consequences for the users of social media because businesses use the link to send junk messages to the account owners and those messages can cause annoyance to most of the customers (Bocij & Greasley, 2006). Such issues can make businesses lose trust of their customers if they fear that their personal information is unprotected and may expose them to risk of abuse. Social media has another challenge whereby the organizations have to be in constant touch with the users and to respond to their comments or concerns every time (Bocij & Greasley, 2006, p. 267). Sometimes the clients or business opponents may give negative comments sometimes with an intention to hurt the brand image of other organizations. Also, the organizations should be proactive to determine what drivers the traffic in a social platform. Inability to control the discussion issues in the organizations pages can result in undesired consequences such as promoting other organizations (Finnegan & Willcocks, 2007, p. 43). This may be the case of the organizations offering similar products and services and which the issues being addressed and requiring customers to seek further help from the organization as may be the case of health organizations. Therefore, business organizations have to decide on what to do with the negative messages or comments. The available options may be to ignore the comments, delete the negative messages or to respond to those messages (Carbone, 2004, p. 97). However, whatever decision the organization takes has consequences. Ignoring or deleting the negative messages may cause severe injury to the brand image because customers may view the organization in a negative way and as if lacking capacity to satisfy their requirements. Organizations should use those negative comments into opportunities to showcase the other side of the organization. Responding to such messages in a positive approach is likely to attract more customers into the discussion and make them change their views about the organization (Bocij & Greasley, 2006, p. 321). Furthermore, organizations may find it difficult to maintain their constant presence on the social media platform. Unlike individuals, organizations may require approve of the messages they post to the clients by the top managers. Alternatively, organizations may have to train and empower particular individuals bestowed with the responsibility to interact with the public through social media platform. Therefore, the time lag between the clients’ comments and the approval of commentators responsible could have a significant difference in the customer behaviour. Though organizations should be cautious about the content they release to the public customers, on the other hand, require the quick response to their concerns (Chaffey & White, G. 2004). Unnecessary delays can drive away customers by compelling them to seek the help they need from elsewhere. This could mean decline in customer loyalty because customers are always impatient or have no time to wait for responses. In order for the organizations to interact with customers effectively on the social media, there is the need for well-developed infrastructures and Internet connections to link the parties (Bergeron, 2002, p. 195). Also, the users must be literate or at least have some knowledge of how to use the internet in order to have their presence on the social media platform. However, many potential clients lack internet connection or access to internet enabled devices while others lack knowledge about the use of the internet (Bocij & Greasley, 2006, p. 532). Therefore, organizations cannot entirely focus on social media if they aim at intensify their marketing campaign and increase customer loyalty. Overreliance of social media as the only marketing platform will result in large number of potential customers being cut out the market, and the organizations will not achieve their goals effectively. Conclusion Businesses survive through networking with customers and employees. Understanding the needs of the customers and responding by offering the product or services that bring that satisfaction plays the critical role in the success of the business. Since many businesses are aiming to expand their activities to the global market, social media becomes the crucial tool for achieving those goals. Social media has many tools for the businesses to interact with customers. However, businesses should be careful about the information they share with the social media because it can build or destroy brand image or customer loyalty cost effectively. It has opened up a global market for the businesses and the only limiting factor for businesses growth is their capacity to meet customer requirements. Timely response to customer needs with the right information and in the form required by the customers can increase customer loyalty. Furthermore, organizations can obtain information about their competitors and strategize operations in order to out-compete the competitors. Social media is a platform that enables employees to interact and share customer experiences in the way that can result in an improvement of customer services. The markers must keep a customer updated by constantly reviewing the content they post in the social media in line with the review of products and services according to customer requests. By doing this organizations will win the customer loyalty and promote their brand because such reviews makes customers feel that the organization is concerned about their needs and will meet their requirements. . Although social media has many opportunities for organizations to increase customer loyalty and expand the market for their businesses, it also has several disadvantages for the businesses. For example, competitors may decide to attack the brand of another company in order to damage its reputation. Also, inexperienced employees may send dissatisfying information to the customer, or the company may delay in responding to customer requests and that may have undesired consequences on the brand image and customer loyalty. Furthermore, not all customers or businesses have adequate intent connection hence many individuals are cut out of the virtual market experiences. The social media can lead to success or failure of the brand and customer loyalty depending on how efficient and enthusiastic the organization is carrying out its activities in the social media platform Bibliography Bergeron, B. P. 2002, Essentials of CRM: A Guide to Customer Relationship Management, John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 15-128. Bocij, P. & Greasley, A. 2006, Business Information Systems: Technology, Development and Management for the E-business, Prentice Hall; Pearson Education. Pp. 1- 827. Carbone, L. 2004, Clued In: How to Keep Customers Coming Back Again and Again, Pearson Education. Pp. 23-156 Chaffey, D. & White, G. 2004, Business Information Management: Improving Performance Using Information Systems, Prentice Hall. Pp. 15-257. Chaffey, D. 2006, Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation, and Practice, Prentice Hall.Pp. 1-550. 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