The Role of Social Media in Business Growth

This assignment delves into the significance of social media networking in promoting business growth. It examines various platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter to understand how businesses can leverage them to reach a wider audience, enhance customer engagement, and ultimately drive success. The assignment also touches on the importance of professionalism, cost-effectiveness, and innovation in business strategies.

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Managing the digital enterprise

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Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Variety of social networking sites...............................................................................................................3
Analyse the business models and strategies.................................................................................................5
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................11
References.................................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
Social media networking has become advanced because it provides online services, sites or
platforms that focus on creating and defining the social relations among people. It allows number
of people to get connected with family, friends and other people who live outside (Paquette,
2013). The assignment will be made on variety of social networking sites such as Facebook,
Instagram, twitter and many more. The business model of four chosen different sites will be
analyzed to make better understanding about the social media sites and their role in developing
the business.
Variety of social networking sites
There are number of social networking sites which help to connect large number of people and
building a social relationship with them. There has been a rise in the number of companies that
use social networking sites for increasing the performance of the business. The effectiveness of
the business has expanded with the use of social networking. The unnecessary cost of marketing
function of the business can be reduced with the effective use of social media sites.
Communication plays an integral role within the organization as it helps to reduce the
misconception between employees (Sarker, Ahuja, Sarker & Kirkeby, 2011). It has been
evaluated that the business through social media marketing is more cost effective than traditional
marketing. It has been analyzed that small business has not enough resources and capitalization
but with the help of Facebook, Twitter, online sites, it can put its products and services for
selling to the potential customers without any costing. The revenues of the company can get
influenced in positive manner through social media networking sites.

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The term of digital marketing is considered as the modern phenomenon which helps to promote
the products and services in entire world. It is a huge term which covers number of social
networking sites and concepts such as discussion forum, SMS, MMS, blogging, Pay per click
(PPC) and social media marketing. It has been found that the web market is booming at a very
fact pace. It is because entrepreneurs have understood that the long term success in business
cannot be possible without having presence of digital on the internet. There are not only specific
websites but millions of new websites are being added on the internet every year which helps to
promote the business efficiently. Apart from that there are other social networking sites such as
Twitter, Badoo, LinkedIn, Googl+, You Tube, Yahoo, You Tube, My life and many more which
contributes in developing the business in an effective manner. There are huge companies in all
over the world such as Google, Amazon, Samsung and many more that find new customers
based on their interest (Robischon, 2017). They advertise their business in the local market and
in special demographics. The trust of these companies’ customer is built with the help of social
media and these companies are enabled to connect with people personally. Social networking
sites enable companies to build event and also communicate with the clients in real time by
implementing the live video.
It would be helpful for the company to engage people with services and content solutions. It
allows them to manage in easy manner its ad campaigns from anywhere on any device. The
internet of things is considered as the global ecosystem of interconnected devices such as
gadgets, smart phones, appliance and more which can communicate with each other by the
internet. The social networking sites ready to the business towards this eventuality, and
interlinked ecosystem that will pervade by every terms of people’s lives. Social network
facilitates in amplifying their business outside their domestic country (Woodcock, Green &

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Starkey, 2011). It enables people to market the product and services in easy manner in the
foreign markets and the contact with foreign people would increase with the help of social media
marketing. There are so many popular companies that are update on the internet and make their
customer aware about the recent changes in their products and services which build the popular
image of the brand in the mind of the customers.
The market share of the organization has increased with the help of social networking sites.
People are getting aware about the usage of social media networking and they start to explore the
products and services at home without going anywhere; it increases the possibilities of potential
customers of the company. The use of social networks gives a company truly global approach in
the market. The sales of the organization is growing rapidly because social networking sites
make enable people of outside country as well to get products and services of the company.
Along with that social networking sites help to get feedback from the customers of their
experience with products and services which aids to organization to make amendments if
changes are required. The communication between the company and its customers can be
increased due to online platforms which help them in creating better products according to
customers’ requirements (Brady, Holcomb & Smith, 2010).
Analyse the business models and strategies
There are different social networking sites which is helpful to expand the business efficiently.
The business model and strategies of four chosen social sites is described below.
Facebook

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The business model and business strategy of Facebook is effective as it has various resources to
get revenues such as advertisements. It has been evaluated that user targeted advertisement is a
major source of revenue for facebook. The business model of Facebook was created to generate
the revenue primarily from its different ability to give targeted advertisements. It has been
evaluated that advertisements is being used by many companies to generate revenues and it is the
primary revenue source, there is only thing has changed which is platforms.
Figure 1: Business Model of Facebook
Source: (Enders, Hungenberg, Denker & Mauch, 2008).
New platforms are acquired by Facebook such as Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Instagram
and various applications on mobile and websites which have been included to the network.
Facebook allows people to do business on its sites without spending single penny which increase
the online marketing. Along with that it is the place where established applications and business
come to promote its business to the people. Pages are being made by these companies on
Facebook to promote the business. The business strategy of Facebook is different for marketers,

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users and developers. The numbers of marketers are increased because Facebook offers them to
do work with it. It focuses on to invest in measurement and analytics tools for improving the ad
campaign effectiveness of the marketers. The business strategy of Facebook towards users is also
effective as it develops the number of users across geographies (Saravanakumar and
SuganthaLakshmi, 2012). It also increases the user engagement by launching initiatives so that
users visit the site of Facebook frequently and spend their most of time over there.
Figure 2: Elements of Facebook business strategy
Source:(R&P Research, 2017).
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the other social media websites that is able to connect many people with other
professionals along with the companies and recruiters. The company is positioned itself as the
only platform worthy of professional networking. Certain premium services are charged by this
site to promote their companies and for connecting with them who are looking for a job. Apart

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from being the effective recruitment, LinkedIn is also a sought after social networking website
by marketers to implement their marketing campaigns. This kind of services provides to over
18% of the total revenue of the company and provides features which is helpful for the company
to only make create the pages but also amplify their marketing efforts through building
sponsored content and text advertisements. Premium subscription of this site is different and
categorize as per career, Business plus, Sales Navigator and Recruiter Lite.
Figure 3: Premium plan on LinkedIn
Source: (Neti, 2011).
LinkedIn has expanded its business by many acquisitions which involve well known name such
as Slide share, and Lynda. The premium sales solution of LinkedIn boost social selling strategies
by giving tools such as increased search with lead builder, In Mail, Saved leads and sales
insights.
LinkedIn provides the career solution which would be helpful to deepen the visibility of someone
and helps to compare the profiles with requirement job. It also provides the clear picture to look
at profile and get access to online videos and salary insights (Neti, 2011).

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YouTube
The business model and business strategies of YouTube is effective as it earn revenue from
advertisements, there is a short video ads which is placed in between videos, that also the source
of income. The company makes money from the advertisers because every view of every ad is
the source of earning the money (Miller, 2011). The proportion of that fee is also paid to the
creator who makes videos and uploads on this site. However, there is an option come of skip the
advertisement and if user skips the ad in such case the advertiser is not liable to pay a cent.
Freemium revenue model is launched by YouTube just like Netflix’s business model. The
feature of paid content began as a pilot program in 2013 with not more than dozen accounts
which involves popular brands such as Professional Golf Association and Sesame Street (Chen,
2013). The feature is now widespread on the platform. The most benefit point of YouTube is that
the benefits are shared between the content developer and YouTube with proportion of 55:45.
Figure 4: business model of YouTube

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Source: (Dutta, 2017).
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking service that provides the services to its users to read short
140 character message which is known as “Tweets”. To read and post the tweet, the users need
to be registered on this site and those people who are not registered can only read them. The
business model and business strategy of Twitter is attractive as it earns more than 85% of its sum
of revenue by advertising. Twitter is the social networking site that sells the data which calls it
data licensing. The data licensing revenue of Twitter is $32.3 million as of 2015. It has become
more popular networking sites where discussion has been made on the specific topics. Retweets
is the process where the content developer and the twitter both can earn money. Twitter is
helpful to promote the business and opens a channel to interlink with the customers and finding
the likes and dislikes. To get an easy and quick replay, the businessman can open a service
channel on this site. Along with that it allows people to catch up with competitors, pain areas and
research strategy. The latest happening in particular industry can be seen with the help of Twitter
which can be used to get advantage as deem fit (Kim and Ko, 2012).

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Conclusion
It can be concluded that social media networking is the fastest route to grow the business in
effective way. There can be some changes in the social networking sites to influence the demand
of business. However, Facebook is the largest social networking sites where more than 10 billion
people are connected each other and business are promoted but Facebook can make one more
sites which should be come under professionalism. LinkedIn is completely professional site
where people come to communicate regarding business plan and for looking job. It should create
the platform where people come and join each other to communicate regarding start up and for
growing business. YouTube is effective social media networking where people can watch what
they want and get the entire knowledge about the business strategy. Social networking might be
more cost effective where people can do business without investing money.

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References
Brady, K. P., Holcomb, L. B., & Smith, B. V. (2010). The use of alternative social networking
sites in higher educational settings: A case study of the e-learning benefits of Ning in
education. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 9(2).
Chen, C. P. (2013). Exploring personal branding on YouTube. Journal of Internet
Commerce, 12(4), 332-347.
Dutta, A. (2017). YouTube Business Model | How does YouTube make money?. Retrieved from:
.
Enders, A., Hungenberg, H., Denker, H. P., & Mauch, S. (2008). The long tail of social
networking.: Revenue models of social networking sites. European Management
Journal, 26(3), 199-211.
Kim, A.J. and Ko, E. (2012). Do social media marketing activities enhance customer equity? An
empirical study of luxury fashion brand. Journal of Business Research, 65(10), pp.1480-
1486.
Miller, M. (2011). YouTube for business: Online video marketing for any business. Pearson
Education.
Neti, S. (2011). Social media and its role in marketing. International Journal of Enterprise
Computing and Business Systems, 1(2), 1-15.

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Paquette, H. (2013). Social Media as a Marketing Tool: A Literature Review. Digital Commons.
Retrieved from < http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1001&context=tmd_major_papers >
R&P Research. (2017). Elements of Facebook Business Growth Strategy. Retrieved from: .
Robischon, N. (2017). Why Amazon is the world’s most innovative company of 2017. Fast
Company. Retrieved from: < https://www.fastcompany.com/3067455/why-amazon-is-
the-worlds-most-innovative-company-of-2017 >
Saravanakumar, M. and SuganthaLakshmi, T. (2012). Social media marketing. Life Science
Journal, 9(4), pp.4444-4451.
Sarker, S., Ahuja, M., Sarker, S., &Kirkeby, S. (2011). The role of communication and trust in
global virtual teams: A social network perspective. Journal of Management Information
Systems, 28(1), 273-310.
Woodcock, N., Green, A., & Starkey, M. (2011).Social CRM as a business strategy. Journal of
Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management, 18(1), 50-64.