Why Does Fortune 500 Companies Need Social Media - Essay Example

Why Does Fortune 500 Companies Need Social Media Large Fortune companies need the social media as much as the small and startup companies do. There is misconception that these companies do not need the social media since they are well established and they having been performing well in their specific industries for some years. If these companies are deceived by the misconception they will be lagging behind when it comes to online marketing. Times have changed over the decades; companies no longer use the same techniques of marketing they used in the last four decades when there was limited internet access. Most of the large fortune 500 companies started as small companies or family businesses many years back and have performed well in their respective industries. To improve on these performances further and to go to the next level, these companies will have to incorporate social media use. There are many fantastic and well-designed social media strategies for the use of Fortune 500 companies. Despite the formulation of these strategies, still these companies lag behind when it comes to the use of social media. A recent study revealed that a majority of the large Fortune 500 companies does not use the social media such as Facebook and Twitter in their customer service plan and overall marketing plan. It would be appropriate for these companies to use Facebook to get their brands and products in front of consumers. Such platforms create an environment where consumers can easily view these products and share them easily. Facebook is one of the platforms where users of these products can present their opinions about them. The opinions comprise of compliments as well as complain. Many companies use the social media to meet there customer needs. They do so to show other customers who are observing that they are concerned with the customers’ needs (Kerpen 75). Large 500 Fortune companies should need the social media since it would put them at a better position to understand their audience. Despite the fact that these companies have a large following due to their many years of existence, it is a high time they define their audience and understand them better. Times have changed and consumers’ tastes and preference are not the same as they were many years back. These large companies would be cheated to assume so and use past techniques to design modern day techniques. Learning about their audience would enable them know which products to increase in production and which ones to reduce. They can learn all this by determining the language used by their audience. It would also be important for them to note the age, gender, and cultures of their audience (Moe & Schweidel 102). Apart from learning about their audience, the social media would help these large companies to target their audience. Some social media such as Facebook have segments that indicate which type of people the fan page targets. It usually indicates in the in the profile page which group of people it is interested in. This is by age, gender, or geographical location. Large 500 fortune companies are mostly known worldwide but they do not exhaust their business operations in all markets. It would be wise for them to establish themselves in a social media that will facilitate them targeting these new markets that they enter. The social media will enhance the communication of these companies with their target audience. Well-designed social media will facilitate the differentiating of target audience especially in terms of geographical locations. The different groups of customers have different tastes and preferences hence their expectations from these companies would differ across the borders. For the continued success of these companies, they will need to target different audience through the social media to understand their expectations and fulfill them (Scott 87). However how many customers’ large Fortune 500 companies have, they still need more customers. More customers will expand these companies into dynasties that will ensure maximum profits as well as shareholder wealth maximization. A good way to attract new customers and to expand the number customers is by utilizing the social media. In the twenty first century, most customers use social media to catch up and share items with their colleagues, family, and friends. These companies need to use this advantage to attract new customers to their business. For example using the geographical search in Hootsuite a customer can be able to locate a retail store or a product that he desires within his location. Companies can also take advantage of the threads that about products that get large following on Twitter. For example if customers express their need of certain products, these companies would have a better chance of utilizing the opportunity. Most large Fortune companies conduct expensive research to get feedback of their customers concerning their products and service. Social media would be a more convenient way to get the feedback from their customers since it is cheaper and more reliable. Social media also facilitate the receiving of feedback from a large group of customers as compared to research that base its findings on a sample of the entire population. These samples usually focus on a small number of customers since it is hard to separate physically between customers of a product and non-customers. Social media facilitates only the feedback of interested people. This interested group mainly consists of customers. The feedback from the customers will mainly entail getting to know how they use these products and services for their different uses. They will also explain their experiences of using these products. This is a very effective way of self-advertisement since customers themselves get to advertise the products and services for the companies. This happens when the customers get satisfaction from the use of these services and products. Customers tend to rely more on information from their fellow consumers than from the companies themselves. This is due to the normal sugar coating of products and services that companies normally do on their commodities. The companies would also get to learn some of their weaknesses through these feedbacks. They will therefore be in position to act on these weaknesses promptly to remain competitive. Since most large Fortune 500 companies do not consider the need to use social media, using it in a company will give a competitive advantage. The social media will enable these companies to be able to identify the market gap. Identifying this gap will enable them to utilize it to increase its profit and opportunities in the market. The social media will facilitate these companies with required market intelligence that would put them ahead of their competitors. The social media enable these companies to research about their competitors’ products and services. Researching all these will enable these companies to improve on the areas of business where their competitors lag behind to differentiate their products. In the past large 500 Fortune, companies faced great challenges in sharing information to their esteem customers. Recently, with the use of social media this problem is easily solved. These companies can now reach their customers more conveniently through their official websites and other various social media accounts such as Twitter and Facebook. Sharing of this information to the customers is much faster and only takes a few minutes before the information is trending worldwide. In conclusion, in recent times it is critical for large Fortune 500 companies to use social media despite their popularity in the market. The use of social media by these companies is very convenient especially in terms of marketing. The application of social media has many advantages that out way their drawbacks. Works cited Kerpen, Dave. Likeable Social Media. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011. Print. Moe, Wendy, and David A Schweidel. Social Media Intelligence. Print. Scott, David Meerman. The New Rules Of Marketing & PR. Print. Read More