Digital Channels and Social Media - Essay Example

? Digital channels and social media Digital channels refers to modern electronic mediums that are used for communication between people, the list of digital channels includes blogs, social networks, vlogs, podcasts, and webcast communities. The culture of digital media is spreading around the world now days. People are becoming more and more aware of ways of using the social networks for their success in professional life. Digital channels have improved our living standards and provide us with more ease in work field. These channels are applied in many fields, for better implementation of techniques and ideas we have in our minds. The best use of digital media is in businesses of different kinds and types. The marketing department of every organization needs these channels in order to maintain their business. Digital channels have become the mean of communication between common man hence the implementation of these channels in your system of organizations is very important. You have to run your market according to needs of your customers; the ways of communication have changed enormously in past few years. When people used to read newspaper and magazines, the print media was top most priority for business organizations but now it has changed according to the trends in societies. Social media is another mean of interaction between people; social media is defined formally as the set of different online technology implements that make people to communicate easily through internet and share their information, ideas, views and resources with people of interest. It includes text, audio, video, images, podcasts, and some others. Different social networks like Facebook, twitter, and blogs are used presently for the convenience in every aspect of life. Social media are differentiated from other old fashioned media in many ways frequency, reach, quality, immediacy, usability, and permanence. The most appropriate use of social media is in the field of marketing, advertisement and public relations. Social media has affected the businesses; it has taken them from ground to higher levels. Social media is used as powerful tool for marketing of different products and services, different people have started their own small business and marketed their products of Facebook, tweeter, and other internet based social media. The most important part of business is advertising your products and services and social networks have made it very easy. The success of your business depends on more public relations you make. This was not easy some years back but now the world has shrunk into a global village and making social relations is easier than ever before. Finding your target market and serving them, sharing of information and ideas, updating your data details of sales and taxes, and following the market trends; these all tasks are now just as easy as that. Getting the feedback from your customers is of vital importance in every type of business. This job can be done through communicating with your customers; social media and digital channels provides us this valuable facility and use of this facility can take your organization to the height of success. Use of digital channels and social media in marketing: Digital marketing is a term defining upraise of your business by the use of different digital tools like emails, social networks and cellular services. The marketing of your business can be done very effectively by using digital technology and internet services. There are many uses of digital channels in marketing field some of them are discussed here. There are wide uses of digital marketing and social media networking. The most important use is your direct link with your customers this facility is provided to business organization and they can use it to increase their sales. The records of your customer and deals with them can be saved and reviewed at any time. You can save your time and efforts by addressing many of your customers at same time. The level of ease will increase and you can refer to any record saved, you can review customers’ behaviours by assessing the digital data records in your databases. Digital marketing allows an organization to measure its quantitative results for example the information of customer who has viewed the website more and how many people are going through your messages and which customer will perform more positively as a result of certain trend of market. Anyone can start a business by using these digital and social networks, these business can succeed easily and you don’t need to hire experts for your business (Wirthman, 2013). Use of digital channels and social media in advertising: The best use of social networks for advertising is that they are free in many aspects for example the advertisement of your brand through a Facebook page is free but if you use print media you have to pay for every ad. Digital networks and cellular services are cheaper than print and electronic media. They are long-lasting and can be updated according to the types of changes in your business. You can easily reach your customers and get connected with them in a time of second. Small business organizations don’t have that mush budget in start so to keep your advertising cost low you can use these networks and email services to reach your customers. The advertisement purposes includes some basic principles one of them is to attract the customer and make a place in their minds and hearts this can be achieved through advertising your brand on internet and cellular services. The advertising agencies may not promote your purpose as you want them to; this may cause negative image of your brand in minds of customers. This will make your business down. The business advertisement is backbone of your success in corporate. The use of social networking and digital media has changed the whole background of business advertisement (Weigel, n.d.) Use of social media and digital channels in PR: The term PR stands for public relations means your relation with different people on the basis of certain behaviours like how you think about specific problem, how you work in an organization, how you treat people around you, and what you are capable of. These relations are important for the success of any organization, the way people behave with each other in working environment and how they deal with their partners builds the trust and PR. As described earlier social media and digital media has great impact on communication process between your customers and other partners. The direct link can be established in order to satisfy the customers by answering their queries and taking their feedback. Nowadays social media like blogging and posting at Facebook and Twitter make easy reach for an organization to get linked with their valuable customers. Your business partners and stake holders are main target in PR management you must satisfy them in order to carry on with the business relations with them. This can be done by using modern technology of digital channels and social media, an organization needs to develop strong and long-lasting relationships with their stakeholders. In 21st century all organizations use social media and digital channels for this purpose these types of communications are done through emailing and blogging as well as through online video chatting, this saves time of everyone. It takes less resources and cost is low. Digital tools used for marketing, advertising and PR: Different digital tools used in this paper are: E-mail Cellular services Video chatting Pod catcher Emails are used for communication purposes between your employee’s customers and partners. This is easy and free way to communicate, it works fast and you get response in time from your concerned party. Yahoo mail, Gmail, Msn and other email services are used as tool of digital communication Cellular services are not completely free but this also a cheaper way of sending and receiving information and other details. Inside an organization every employee will have easy access to his or her contacts. This is a faster way of communication and it is less risky as well. Video chatting can be done in some cases when a stakeholder or your client can’t visit you personally, you make video calls on Skype, msn, yahoo, Facebook and Gmail and can share the information and storm your ideas in appropriate manner. Pod catcher is a multimedia file uploaded on internet and you can download it to some mobile device and use its information as per your needs. These files are used by third party they can take information from those files. My pod, pod star and some others are used in order to `display the data. Social media used for marketing, advertising and PR: Social media used for marketing, advertising and PR is as follow: Facebook YouTube Tweeter ``Facebook is used by almost every type business in terms of marketing their products, advertising them and taking feedback from customers. There are many small organizations using Facebook as their marketing channel. YouTube is widely used by different organizations for the sake of advertisement and marketing. It’s not free but it is an easy way of communication. Ads played before different videos create, awareness of your product will spread widely and people will tempted towards it. Effective tool and its evaluation: The most effective digital tool is pod catcher. It is computer program that downloads all media files though RSS and XML. There are so many versions of pod catcher, which can be used \widely. The wide ranges of these tools make our life less risk and unpredictable. The pod cast service is always available in order to work with you Impact of digital tools and social media From last few years different organizations have moved towards the use of digital tools and social media for the purpose of marketing, advertisement and customer relationships. This has increased the speed of work and successful outcomes are achieved. The need of time is to understand the strategy for adapting this digital technology, knowing the impact of social networks on your business. These networks may cause harm to your business in terms of employee customer relationship or partner owner. In order to use them for your good you need to understand the logic behind it and then form your organisational strategy to follow your goals. An organization has to motivate its employees to change the daily social media process into a vast and well-defined business strategy. The evaluation of ethical and legal issues regarding the use of social media and digital channels is essential in order to maintain winning position in industry. Legal issues: There are two types of organizations in present world, one using social media and digital channels for their business marketing and advertising and second category includes the companies investing in business strategies. There is a big difference between both types of companies; there some legal issues regarding the use of social media as your marketing or advertising tool. The employees working in your organization may start using social media for their personal use and waste time on it Another legal issue is the ownership of social media it is not your property and you are using it for your purposes; you cannot change it or limit its access. What if someone steals your idea or copies your design for logo you cannot keep a check over this as you don’t have the ownership of the media you are using (Peabody, n.d.) Ethical issues: The first and top most ethical issue that can badly affect the repute of any business is use of social media and digital channels for customers’ feedback. When you place your product on a social media website for sake of market it may harm your business. Many people will comment and claim negatively and your product will lose the market. To build trust and credibility regarding the use of social networks and digital channels certain steps must be taken. Avoiding spam emails, popup windows, deceptive marketing and advertising to keep the trustworthy relationship with your consumers and satisfy their needs. The negative feedback has bad impact on company but still you need to address them in professional way so that your customer remains intact with you. References: Wirthman, Lisa. "How To Protect Your Business From Social Media Pitfalls - Forbes." Information for the World's Business Leaders - Forbes.com. http://www.forbes.com/sites/capitalonespark/2013/01/31/how-to-protect-your-small-business-from-social-media-pitfalls/ (accessed April 13, 2013). Weigel, Margaret. "Social media in the workplace: Research roundup – Journalist's Resource: Research for Reporting, from Harvard Shorenstein Center." Journalist's Resource: Research for Reporting, from Harvard Shorenstein Center. http://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/jobs/social-media-workplace-research-roundup# (accessed April 12, 2013). "Ten social media issues for businesses." Nixon Peabody. www.nixonpeabody.com/files/151390_top_ten_social_media_issues_for_businesses.pdf (accessed April 12, 2013). Read More