Advantages and benefits of using social media for business
Advantages and benefits of using social media for business
Society has changed and it has emerged as in a global prospective which is now referred as Social media. Social media is actually network and connections of people through social media sites hosted on the Internet. Since from its emergence social media has undoubtedly gathered a lot of people on its platform. People are now sharing from their snaps and routine life to business and their business like activities. After getting million of traffic on these social media websites, it becomes an attractive platform for business communities to launch their products for promotion, selling, buying and hiring etc. In this article Advantages and benefits of using social media for business are explained.
Present day social media comprises of Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest etc.
This facility can be used by anyone, any place, any moment. Now the consumers are no more attractive to Radio and TV and Cable set up. Due to emergence of these social media all the set up has been changed now it is best place for promoting the product in spite of newspaper, magazine and publishing company radio and television broadcasts, or reading newspapers and magazines, with no hope of an immediate interaction. With Social Media, all that changed.
Now the companies and firms have realized that this can promote our business and they can easily sell their product with crossing the boundaries and leaving their office. A mill owner sitting in the Japan can make promotion on any of the web of social media and million of user sitting on around the entire world can easily viewed their product, thus at first instance it provides an opportunity to describe the product to its customer.
In the second phase customers who have viewed the product will buy the product but still customers will remain in their houses, they will not go Japan and by social media they will send their order and online banking and cash transfer and rapid courier will remove all the hurdles for buyer and seller. This was an overview that how business is in fact happening in on the social media.
Why businessman should choose social media.
Business is happening due to sharing and posting facilities available on the social media websites like YouTube, google plus, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest etc.
We here explain one by one all the tools and facilities which are provided on these social media due to which firms are lurking to the social media for their promotion of business.
Video and Clip Sharing
By using this facility on the social media businessmen can upload and post their product information in video and clips form. People can easily see the product info and can comments and can give their feedback to the hosted information. Once the feedback is found business owner can improve his product. Daily Motion, Vimeo and YouTube are the top video sharing sites which can be used for the promotion of business. On these web sites Branded fan pages, Chanel and account can be made free of cost and business owner have to gather customer and viewer by promotion.
Image Sharing and hosting
The quick online response is very effective tool. Prospective customer can view the product design, specification and their attributes on the fan and promotion pages on the social media websites like Myshutterbox, Flickr, Wallspace. On these webs photographer, painter, artist and media worker can host their work for all users and thus their can get widened from their local city to a global world resultant enhancing their business span.
Business social pages
Among all social Medias sites Facebook, twitter, google are on the top. Due to their million of users and accounts are in fact probable customers. Thus business community has hosted thousands of fan and promotion pages on these sites for getting closer to their customer and making their product info available round the clock around the entire globe usually free of cost.
On the other hand user review sites, blogs, social bookmarking, collaborative tools, video sharing are the major attractive marketing trends which are attractive for the e commerce and business firms all over the world.
What are the real benefits of social media to business community?
One of the greatest advantages of SM (Social Media) is broadening of market, place, and customer. It discovers new business and markets.
After discovering the new markets and customers the next step of SM (Social Media) promote the business at the newer place.
Its increment the brand information, thus customer sitting in their houses can get all the product related info.
Above all facilities can be launched free of cost however SM (Social Media) also give an opportunity for promotion of business on payment basis. Through payment product events, shows and launching and distribution can be done.
Another greater benefit is the customers feed back which can be obtained from crunch, since people comments and put their remarks on these products therefore business analyst and marketing manager sitting the company can alter and shape their plans and product design and portability according to the views mentioned on these portals.
These SM (Social Media) sites give new experiences and ideas to the business man from already hosted products info and promotion.
By virtue of SM (Social Media) marketing manager can test the market without making any manual survey which saves the expenditure.
In nut shell SM (Social Media) increase the customers, increase the markets, increase the product sale, increase customer satisfaction, increase reliability, increase awareness about the company and product at the cost of nothing.
Essential tips for promotion of business and launching of product on social media for customers
Here are some most essential tips are given which can be used to promote and do the business on SM (Social Media). PDCA (Plan Do Check and Act) management principle is equally important for this to move ahead for the destination.
Plan or Planning for the product launching
Planning is actually thinking in which small and large scale enterprises should analyze that whether they can spend Time, Money, whether they arrange offshore marketing manager , Workforce and a proper place for the promotion of their business on SM (Social Media). Once all items arranged shift to the next goal.
Do and Check the strategy to be adopted
Define a benchmark and find the measures to be initiated for early implementation and execution strategy. First of all launch a fan and product info page on the social medias and gather all the comments, likes and dislikes of the customers and users on this page.
There must be a profile, likes and dislikes button and all information related to company. Essential policies and final prices including taxes and delivery charges must be mentioned.
On the basis of these data find a place and pointed customers for the product launching. The next to do is arrange and locate a budget, then hire and train the workers to act on the social media. The key to all the process is one should do or at least monitor all the online activities closely because even a short negative comments can destroy the whole effort, so it is a bit sensitive as well.
It is also a best practice to follow the ideas and strategy planned by the competitors.
Act or implement the planing for product launching on the SM (Social Media)
Now the time is to make the product fully available for the customer for procurement through the company website as well as promotion and fan pages. There must be links on each fan page, blogs and other SM (Social Media) pages for the main website. Closely monitor the whole process and gradually change and adopt the measures according the views and observations made by the users on these pages.
There must be a clear and final price and there must not be hidden charges for the product sale and delivery.
Company must look the policies and taxes for each product type for the region where he is making business.
Necessary tasks to be done after the implementation phase.
Hire a well-trained online marketing manager
Be social and do not shell your company.
Be polite while answering all the comments reply on the social media pages.
Do not become personal.
Respond to negative remarks in positive way.
Do not annoy the audience.
Give answers to all social medias links.
Be professional and must available online round the clock.
Use the tool of Video sharing, image sharing and micro-blogging effectively according to the SCO best practices and policies.
Use google, google ad-words, and google webmaster and other google promotion tools for the effective user gathering and product promotion.
Mandatory tips to handle a blog for business prospective
Company and product blog must be complete in all aspects i.e. its profile, design, and contents should be clear and to the point.
There must be professionalism in contents as well design.
Donot copy and paste the contents. Copied contents even for your genuine product will minimize the traffic and thus product value will be decreased.
Your contents and product information should be as per the product deign and shape.
Facebook groups, google blogs, ad-words and twitter can give best content survey and information.
Social media for business global statistics (2015)
Last year market survey has found that Facebook is at the top above 80% market share is in the basket of Facebook. So it would be wise to use Facebook in next product promotion and sale.
It was surveyed that more than 60% of twitter users and 50+ % twitter accounts users procured the product online.
With each passing day of the last year 5 million photos were hosted on the social media site Instagram, which is excessively used on android as well as on PC, Laptop and other machines.
It has been estimated that 120,000 tweets/re-tweets were send every day through twitter.
Social media sites are at top of list in engagements of users other than any sites whether it is business or Governmental site.
On average 13 minutes per hour are being spend UK and USA by the internet users on social media.
In the field of advertising social media shared an amount of $8.3 billion.
More than 96% users viewed the brand on social media.
More than 100 billion searches were made monthly on Google.
Google remained largest indexed search engine and business promoter having index volume of 30,000,000,000,000 pages which is increasing with each second.
On Facebook there are more than 38 million business pages.
In united states more than 70% firms used twitter for their business promotion and marketing.
Pinterest is another platform where women ratio is more and more than 50% photos were loaded by a brand owner.
There are advantages and disadvantages of social media some disadvantages include spying, hacking and fake accounts which can lead to bad repute but if the IT team and social media team is expert they can fight this challenge successful. Precautionary measures and set procedures may be adopted while sending and receiving cash/products by both seller and buyer.
Above mentioned facts are enough to attract a wise CEO to launch and promote their business on social media.
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