Benefits of Social Media for Start-up Businesses

This article explores the benefits of using social media for start-up businesses. It discusses how social media platforms can help start-ups expand their reach, enhance their sales, and reduce marketing expenses. The article also highlights the advantages and disadvantages of partnering with different social media sites.

Digital Marketing Strategy

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
Ethical issues and the associated laws to Digital marketing approach........................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
Some key technical, economic, and social factors influencing the success of digital marketing
campaigns. ..................................................................................................................................5
TASK 3
..........................................................................................................................................................7
Benefits of social media can bring to start-up businesses............................................................7
TASK 4
........................................................................................................................................................10
Effectiveness of the social networking for building brands. .....................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Digital marketing is the marketing of the products or services using the digital platform.
Using the internet for branding and marketing of the products and make provide information
online. It is done via mobile phones, any digital medium is covered under this. Enhancing the
businesses, spreading awareness among the people. This report carries the study about the legal
and ethical issues associated to the laws developed to control ethical approach to digital
marketing. Evaluation of economic, social and
technical factors influencing the success of their digital marketing campaigns. Also discuss the
benefits of social media can bring to small businesses. And at last the brief about effectiveness of
the social websites for building brands.
TASK 1
Ethical issues and the associated laws to Digital marketing approach.
In today's era businesses are more or less dependent on the internet to grow as the online
tactics provides help them to reach to more consumers. These tactics include having website,
social media, mobile marketing, blogs etc. but as a business it is necessary to operate them in
some limits in terms of ethics and professional behaviours. As the technology is evolving faster
and it can be difficult to keep the laws related to legality or ethics with new technologies to
conduct the business online. Some people are more interested to break the cyber laws and
provide illegal contents on the internet. So people should be aware of the things like they do
advertising online, promotional activities and many surveys for e-commerce.
As companies shifts to online platform for promoting their brands, it gives several
benefits to them in terms of maximizing consumer reach, leads to profitability and low cost of
marketing. Digital marketing is one on the medium to do such things for companies. But this
may relates to the legal or ethical laws (Tatlow-Golden, and et.al., 2017). Legal laws includes
client privacy, copyright issues, fraud on internet, intellectual property, email correspondence,
data security etc.
Clients privacy companies communicate to the clients and access their online profiles,
and collects all the information about them like mobile numbers, email or other sites where it
logged in. It may lead to serious issue which is illegal in terms of laws that nobody can interfere
in the user privacy. So Company should take care of the users privacy.

Data security it again relates to the consumers data security like their private data can be
seen or checked by the companies and according to their needs try to reach them, contacting
them. Interfere in their personal space like calling of sending mails again and again. They also
can track their phone numbers and personal internet usage. So that companies have to be more
aware that they should not do such things.
Copyright issues it is in trend like the companies can replicate the other companies
products and information and uses their brand name to sell their products and somehow run their
businesses. It is under copyright issues like the patent websites or information can't be used by
any other company. By breaking this law it is covered under cyber crime (Martin, and Murphy,
2017). Digital Millennium Copyright Act addresses plagiarism and copyright infringement in the
specific context of the internet and e-business.
Fraud on internet as many hackers are there on the internet which are ruling from using
the dark web, it is under security of data that they break the security on users system and steal
their data. As online fraud of banking transaction is in trend which is illegal issue. Also, many
frauds via calls, e-mails, messages on Facebook, Instagram etc. social media platforms are done.
Intellectual property this is again very serious issue facing by digital marketing. As
protecting your intellectual property which may undergoes with online fraud. To save the
intellectual property from the fraud is very hard but still prevention measures can be taken by the
company like they register their trademark, copyright your marketing language, advertising. So if
there is any unfair or deceptive advertising, anti-spam law is available which could save your
company's digital market efforts.
Email correspondence as the companies emails to their customers, it also affects the
privacy of the customers because if people get emails with harming contents to their data
(Hofacker, 2018). Authorization given to distribute something on the web is needed because it is
very private for all.
Ethical theories like Utilitarian, Duty based, Virtue are used to maintain the ethical approaches
Utilitarian (Consequences based), the company take any decision related to the digital
marketing, like which type of content they provide in their advertisement. So outcome or result
of their decision is judged according to the ethics or unethical.

Duty Based theory, it is completely dependent on the intention or reasons of the
businesses like what they want to provide and what are their intention to use digital marketing
for their brand.
Ethics of Virtue, it is about their personal character of the businesses, their own prestige
is judged (Frenz, 2017). Like they give which type of advertisements, their own psychology is
important. It is not decision driven.
Businesses which goes advertising for their brands and products should have to be
concern about these illegal or ethical issues which can harm their prestige in market. People may
deny accepting their products if it hurts their emotions or feeling and harm their privacy. Taking
digital platform to enhance the business is good but always the limits should be considered to
maintain the ethical approaches. Also, it develops the market reputation of the company.
TASK 2
Some key technical, economic, and social factors influencing the success of digital marketing
campaigns.
Nowadays companies are switching to digital marketing for their businesses. Digital
marketing provides a wide platform to the e-commerce as they have more benefits of using it,
like they can plan to launch their products after analysis of market, market their products,
provides all the necessary details about them. Digital marketing also needs for PESTLE analysis
as they give the detail idea of the country's condition. The marketer use this analysis for smart
marketing of the brand. If they skip this process it might losses the company (Levy, and Gvili,
2015). So the company should be aware of such things. Evaluating the market condition of the
country and their economic, social, technical, political, legal factors help the organization in the
future.
For example, Tesco organization in UK, shifts to digital platform for promoting their
brand online and utilize the internet to enhance their reach in market. Here is the analysis of the
following factors which influence the success of the company's digital marketing campaign
Economic factors
As UK went through the financial crises in last years, the public and business are affected
by this. It's economy goes down continuously which has powerful impact on the market. But the
businesses took smart decision as they follow the trend and shifted to the digital marketing

platform. As the launch online campaigning about their products they get more offers as they cn
connect to more people (Chaffey, and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019). It enhances reach in terms of
consumers, they provide the services and products online to customers, so they don't have to
worry about going outside. They can view or get delivery of the product at their home. It brings
more energy in the businesses, as they get more contacts about suppliers, marketers etc. which
gives relief in the economy as it raises up to certain limits. Digital market campaigning brings
more businesses in the market together. Tesco use the digital marketing campaign for selling
their products online, as they analyse the economic condition of their country. So again it helps
the company to maintain their market value.
Social factors
People are more aware of the digital platform, they uses internet for their personal
motives, businesses us it to achieve their motive. Tesco is affected by the economic condition of
UK because it has 30% of market share in UK. Due to variety of changes in social trends,
customers go for bulk shopping and one time shopping in UK so Tesco provides all the groceries
at their supermarket range of stores. They plan for digital marketing campaigns as they spread
awareness in the people about their range of products available in their stores. These campaigns
are mainly for awareness in public that people get more information. Also in terms of
employment, digital platform used (Ryan, 2016). As Tesco can give the ads about recruitment
and people get to know about the vacancies. So it connects the people in many ways. Tesco is
adopting the changes related to social trends.
Technical factors
As the advancements in the technology field, there are many changes in the marketing
criteria and socially. It develops the businesses and communities. UK is changing in terms of
technology as it's evolving faster. So Tesco takes the advantage of it people uses electronic
gadget to collect information, so they provide online information about the products and
services, also aware the people more about their technologies they use in their supermarkets. So
it decreases cost of labour and marketing costs. Tesco has invested significant amount in digital
marketing campaigning. Utilization of social media platform make them to achieve the targets.
According to the study, it is proved that digital marketing is beneficial for every
organization in terms to enhance business in market and convince more people about their
products. Running the digital marketing campaigns helps the companies to take lead, it increases

the brand value. Consumers awareness is increases. It is solution to many problems. Tesco
adopted digital marketing campaigns and it aids them financially to stay in market (Wakefield,
and Wakefield, 2016). For example some inspiring social media campaigns like Dacia, Tvibes,
Red Bull, Glu, Girl Scouts these campaigns uses the social media platform like Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter. These social media campaigns inspires many other brands to work like this.
TASK 3
Benefits of social media can bring to start-up businesses.
Using the social media platform is very common now. People are more comfortable to
share their privacy with their families, friends via Facebook, Instagram by uploading their
pictures, their thought, views on it. YouTube is proved the best online player of video and
contents in it, anybody can use it to share the information on any topic. The people are using this
to gain information. LinkedIn is very helpful in getting connection with people this provides help
to people in getting jobs. Such social media platforms can be very effective in terms of
businesses also. There are many small businesses occurred in market, as they have new start-ups.
These start-ups take the advantages of these social media platforms like they get to know about
the need of the consumers, according to the analysis they launch their products and come in the
market (Bocken, 2015). As they have keen study about the market, so they prepare their
marketing strategies according to it. As they start with low investments they can't afford a lot on
market the product, so they use social media for spreading the information about their products
and services available in local market. By connecting the families and friends groups and
maintaining a chain which helps to provide necessary information in local market. It expands
their reach and enhance their sales. Such benefits of social media marketing like contents,
engagement, skills, consistency, improved sales, increased exposure, increased traffic, reduces
marketing expenses, generate leads in market, improved search engine rankings, growth in
business partnerships, develop marketplace insight, develop loyal customers. As increment in
following things via social media helps the start-ups to develop. It affects the mentality of the
people who are suing these like if they see the contents on the social media sites they are affected
by this, if they need the product they will go for the information searching about (Jensen, and

Schott, 2015). They make some comparisons with other brands, and they will finally go for the
reviews about the product which are available online.
Such criteria are followed in the social media marketing but it has some advantages and
disadvantages for business partnerships with these social media sites like Facebook, Instagram,
LinkedIn, YouTube.
Social media site Advantages Disadvantages
Facebook  As people joined with
their families and
friends on it. The
whole family get to
know about the brand
so it provides
awareness.
 Product launched in the
market, maybe it is
liked by the person, so
they give suggestion to
their family and friends
to buy it or not. Such
feedbacks from the
people can help in
improving the products
to the small businesses
(Blank, 2017).
 It costs low for
marketing the product
to start-ups.
 The information can be
viewed by all, so if any
illegal or ethical issues
are there with company
it leads to negative
aspect in public. They
start dying it.
 If any wrong feedback
about the product is
there, people will not
go for it.
Instagram  As people upload and
view the picture on it,
 If people give negative
review about the

it is helpful in making
the products on it.
While scrolling the
screen people will get
to know about the
brand or products or
services about the
small start-ups.
 It increases traffic on
their websites.
 Increases the demand
in market.
product, it creates
downfall in the sales.
 As it is open platform
so nothing can be
hidden. It also gives the
chance to competitors
to know they social
media marketing
strategy.
 Losses the competitive
advantage.
LinkedIn  As it helps to know
more people of
corporate world, it
connects the companies
in paying formal
courtesy. So it helps
the start-ups to
understand the
strategies of leading
companies.
 It brings more talented
people to them. As they
can use their skills of
working in innovation
of their products.
 As more opportunities
are available sop
employees retention
rate is high.
 It affects the start-ups
as they lose their
talented employees.
 It may lead to leakage
of their business idea.
YouTube  It provides help to
companies to
understand the
 People can give
negative feedback
about the product so

consumers need. As
videos on many topics
available like
marketing strategies,
market condition, and
helpful in research.
 Also people uploads
their feedback about
the product so it gives
the companies
advantages as they find
scope of improvisation.
other may deny
accepting the product
(Siegel, and Wright,
2015).
 Other company can
copy their ideas and
produce same products.
Technology help the small businesses in growth and expansion. Social media platform
are good to promote new brands in market. But many competitors copy the idea and target
segment is distributed. But from spreading information about product and services and till they
get feedback from people, these social media platform proved to be very beneficial.
TASK 4
Effectiveness of the social networking for building brands.
Marketer are using these social media marketing for enhancing businesses. So it consists
one way communication, the messages are sent to potential customers and helpful in making new
marketing strategies. On social media consumers and businesses can directly communicate. Both
parties can communicate with each other, clear doubts and confusions etc. Social media is
proved very effective in building brands (Thompson, and et.al., 2018). Following these steps can
lead to become successful
Choosing right platform
There are lots of social media sites available on the internet. To share your content, and
spreading it, it is very necessary to choose the right platform. So when you choose the channel

where you want to promote the brand so firstly create your account on it and then target the
audiences. Consider that site which fits to the products perfectly.
Create calendar
Proper update is needed at social sites. Company should be aware of their presence on
social networking sites. They should not repeat their posts otherwise it will loss the interest of
people. As creating calendar about posting the contents, pre-planned the posts, create goals and
strategies to meet up the target and it helps to track the progress.
Encourage Engagement
Social media sites are not only for fun, while the businesses use these platform
developing the interaction of more people with them. Like the post content that people want to
read, comment and ask question, also repost them. Businesses need to be interactive so they
encourage people's involvement.
Over Promotion
Regularly advertising may lead to ignorance of the people. So promoting brands once in a
while with good content which actually public want to see and enjoy it.
Sharing video
As sharing videos on social networking sites will lead to may clarification about the
product and leads to increment in the interest of people, narrative driven video in order to get the
best reaction.
Address problems quickly
Most probably receiving positive feedbacks from the audiences but sometime negative
feedbacks are there (Sashittal, DeMar, and Jassawalla, 2016). So company should monitor the
progress on the social media channels. As they get any problem they can resolve it at same time
and it helps in maintaining their reputation.
Provide value
By providing value the follower of their channels. Businesses should give useful contents
on their channels and people have interest in them. So it may lead to attract more customers.
Make people want to follow the brand and helps to spread contents on the internet.
Build a Community
Try to find the customers who are loyal the brand and who are interested in their
products. As people are more engaged with the brand they like to repost the contents, comments,

follow, like posts and become customers. As the brand build a community, the people within the
community are engage with each other and help to promote the brand together.
According to study, these particular criteria will lead to building the brand. For example
Tesco uses the social media platform to bring awareness in people in UK when there are
financial crises in the country. As they used to promote their brand. They use social media
platform to post the latest offers available in their stores and discounts they give on shopping.
This will make people more curious to follow Tesco on social media sites that they get to know
their upcoming offers and deals. This maintains the brand name in the market. If Tesco will not
take the step to promote their brand on social media then many does not checkout the stores and
lack of information is there which affects the company share in the market.
Other organization is Tesla motors, as it famous for inventing electric cars. It always
works in direction of innovating something new continuously. The CEO of the Tesla motors
Elon Musk is always keen to know about the new things and develops something new to serve
better to the communities (Owino, and et.al., 2016). As this company has build its prestige, how?
Tesla motors follows the trend, it uses the social media platform to spread awareness about their
products as they have contents like they care about environment like electric car does not harm
the nature. Many followers are there on social sites to follow the Tesla motors community to
know that what is inventing by the company new, what are their efforts.
CONCLUSION
According to the following study about the usage of digital marketing platform, it gives
the idea about the new trend followed by the businesses. As many companies are shifted towards
the digital marketing platform to market their products and brand value increases by this. It helps
them to take competitive advantages. Social media is necessary to be used by the people so the
businesses take the advantage s of tit, it provides awareness among the people to get information
about their products. This platform posses advantages to businesses as well as disadvantages. So
be careful in using these sites. Sometimes it leads to offensive contents and it will be illegal
issue. Also, marketing is under ethics, it should follow the ethical theories. Hence, digital media
platform is beneficial in terms of businesses.

REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Blank, S., 2017. Why the lean start-up changes everything. Harvard business review.
Bocken, N. M., 2015. Sustainable venture capital–catalyst for sustainable start-up success?.
Journal of Cleaner Production. 108. 647-658.
Chaffey, D., and Ellis-Chadwick, F., 2019. Digital marketing. Pearson UK.
Hofacker, C. F., 2018. Digital marketing: Communicating, selling and connecting. Edward Elgar
Publishing.
Jensen, K. W., and Schott, T., 2015. Start-up firms’ networks for innovation and export:
facilitated and constrained by entrepreneurs’ networking in private and public spheres.
Social Network Analysis and Mining. 5(1). 48.
Kumar, V., Choi, J. B., and Greene, M., 2017. Synergistic effects of social media and traditional
marketing on brand sales: capturing the time-varying effects. Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science. 45(2). 268-288. Management Research. 2(1). 001-005.
Levy, S., and Gvili, Y., 2015. How credible is e-word of mouth across digital-marketing
channels?: the roles of social capital, information richness, and interactivity. Journal of
Advertising Research. 55(1). 95-109.
Martin, K. D., and Murphy, P. E., 2017. The role of data privacy in marketing. Journal of the
Academy of Marketing Science. 45(2). 135-155.
Martinez-Martin, N., and Kreitmair, K., 2018. Ethical issues for direct-to-consumer digital
psychotherapy apps: addressing accountability, data protection, and consent. JMIR
mental health. 5(2). e32.
Owino, J. O., and et.al., 2016. The influence of social media on brand equity in Kenyan banking
industry. Pyrex Journal of Business and Finance.
Ryan, D., 2016. Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the digital
generation. Kogan Page Publishers.
Sashittal, H. C., DeMar, M., and Jassawalla, A. R., 2016. Building acquaintance brands via
Snapchat for the college student market. Business Horizons. 59(2). 193-204.
Siegel, D. S., and Wright, M., 2015. University technology transfer offices, licensing, and start-
ups. Chicago.
Tatlow-Golden, and et.al., 2017. A safe glimpse within the black box, Ethical and legal
principles when assessing digital marketing of food and drink to children. Public health
panorama. 3(04). 613-621.
Thompson, A. J., and et.al., 2018. Building brand and fan relationships through social media.
Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal. 8(3). 235-256.handbook of
university technology transfer and academic entrepreneurship, 1-40.
Wakefield, R., and Wakefield, K., 2016. Social media network behaviour: A study of user
passion and affect. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems. 25(2). 140-156.
Online
Frenz, R. 2017. Legal & Ethical Issues in E-Business. Available Through:
<https://bizfluent.com/info-8040481-legal-ethical-issues-ebusiness.html>.