EDU10010: Social Media Marketing Advantages & Disadvantages

This essay critically discusses the advantages and disadvantages of social media marketing within the business environment. It explores how businesses leverage social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to promote products and services, attract customers, and build brand awareness. The essay highlights the benefits, such as reaching a wider audience, direct customer engagement, and cost-effectiveness, while also addressing the drawbacks, including negative feedback, time investment, and the potential for reputational damage. The analysis draws on various scholarly sources to provide a comprehensive understanding of social media marketing's impact on brand equity, consumer behavior, and overall business strategy. The essay emphasizes the need for businesses to carefully consider both the positive and negative aspects of social media marketing to effectively utilize it in their marketing campaigns.

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Critically discuss the advantages and disadvantages of social media marketing
Marketing is the course of promoting the products and services offered by different organization
in the international business environment. With the upcoming trends in the environment, most
people spend their major time of the day on social media. Due to which, the businesses have also
emerged the need to effectively use tools of social media to endorse their goods and services in
the environment. This platform provides an attractive market to the company where they can
attract customers and display details about their brand in an innovative way. Further, the below
mentioned essay highlight the details about the advantages and disadvantages of social media
marketing in the business environment (Felix, Rauschnabel, and Hinsch 2017).
Social media marketing is the utilization of social media tools and websites to increase the value
of brand in the marketplace. Various terms like e-marketing and digital marketing are present in
the environment but the use of social media marketing is becoming more popular among the
marketers as this type of practice is increasing the satisfaction of the companies by attracting
more and more consumers in the environment. The data analytics tools are used by the social
media marketers to built-in the progress of the company and engage more and more customers in
the functions of the business. With the help of this type of marketing, several stakeholders’
interest is captured. Journalists, influencers, potential customers, employees, bloggers and
general public is the major target of the organization (Ashley, and Tuten 2015). Further, it should
be noted that this type of marketing is to most innovative and attractive marketing due to which
customers get more attracted in the business with the help of this function. Social media
marketing make use of posts, blogs, video blogs etc. to attract the interest of the customers. On
looking at the attractive features of the company, the customers also get directed to the website
or store of the organization with an aim to implement sales in the environment. Consequently, it
should be expressed that social media marketing is extremely beneficial for the organization to
maximize their sales in the environment (Tuten, and Solomon 2017).
Secondly, it should also be noted that this type of marketing works beyond the geographical
boundaries of the organization and capture the interest of people living in different parts of the
world as well. Resulting in which, another advantage of using this type marketing practice is that
it attracts people beyond their geographical boundaries and initiate sales from different parts of
the world. The social media marketing process makes the world flat by combining people at a

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singular platform and representing their ideas and features of the product to them (Zarrella
2009). This type of marketing is income friendly as well because the organization does not
require to setup a campaign or an event to attract the people as they can simply attract them
posting the information on various platforms. The platforms used under social media marketing
are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pintrest and Tumblr etc. The organizations post their regular
actions and details about the products and services on these platforms and the people visiting this
application get to know about the brand (Kelly, et al., 2015).
More than 70 per cent of people present in the world have their social media profile that show
opportunity for the companies to attract maximum number of people in one go only. With the
help of social media marketing, the organization does not need to perform physical activities in
the environment or invest in door to door marketing as the online platform will easily capture the
interest of people and initiate them to implement sales for the organization. Data analytics will
help the organization to look for the people seeking the product in the environment and offer the
products and services to them as well. This process also helps the organizations to store the data
of the customers for future reference as well. With the help of such details, the organization gets
to implement repeated sales from the customers (Whiting, and Deshpande 2014).
Thus, it should be noted that the process of social media marketing provides an amazing platform
to the people who need to grow the scope of business without expending more in the
environment. The biggest advantage of this type of marketing is that it let the organization reach
a wider market base without investing high cost in the environment. Further, this process also
helps the organization to attain direct connection with the client and communicate with them.
This activity helps them to attain their genuine feedback from the clients and maintain a long
lasting relationship with them as well. Social media marketing also promote organic content in
the environment (Godey, et. al., 2016).
This approach opens up several opportunities for the company to connect with the right type of
people without incurring heavy cost in the environment. Based on the profile of the customers
and the company, the organisation can post as much content as they want to as there are no
boundaries. The company can also make use of paid advertising services in the environment.
Paid advertising would welcome the public relation agencies to communicate with the people on
the social media platform and guide them regarding the products and services of the company as

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well. Strong brand is built with the implementation of social media marketing in the
environment. This activity helps the organization to connect with the people and create a strong
brand presence in their minds (Jones, Borgman, and Ulusoy 2015). Posting organic content helps
the organization to attain a clear brand image of the organization in the environment.
However, apart from several benefits, the organizations using this type of marketing strategy also
suffers as well. Negative feedback is rapidly posted on the social media pages of the company. In
case the organization fails to fulfil the expectation of the clients then they immediately post
negative feedbacks about the company. These feedbacks can be read by all the prospective
people seeking details about the organization. Thus, it should be noted that this activity can
undermine the brand image of the company and it can also reduce the interest of prospective
people as well (Bruno, et. al 2016).
Posting negative feedbacks on the website of the company can also be a strategy for the
competitors to reduce the efficiency of the brand in the business environment. Also, these posts
cannot be deleted therefore it is visible to the people looking for the organization. Further, it
should be noted that this marketing activity opens the organization for receiving potential
embarrassment in the environment. Using the trending hashtags of pictures in a differential way
might reduce the satisfaction of the people from the environment. For instance, organizations
creating memes on #METOO movement etc. can portray wrong brand image of the company in
the international environment. The company can face high criticism for posting such content in
the environment. It is important for the organization to thoroughly analyse the content that they
are posting in the environment and analyse the fact that it does not negatively affect the interest
level of any party present in the environment (Bridget, et. al., 2015).
Thirdly, it should also be noted that a lot of time of the organization is spent on creating an
online campaign and rectifying it due to which efficiency of the activity reduces. The campaign
are created in a creative manner due to which, the organization takes time in introducing
innovation and creativity in the project. Resulting in which, the efficiency of the organization
reduces with the delayed in the time duration of the creation of the project. Lastly, it should be
noted that the results from this activity are not achieved instantly as the organizations need to
wait for a long period of time so as to analyse the success of the event. The online campaign

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takes time to become visible on the applications of the people and attain traffic for the website as
well (Chang, Yu, and Lu 2015).
Thus, it should be noted that the social media marketing has both advantages and disadvantages
in the environment. It depends on the ways in which the organizations makes use of social media
marketing to attain satisfactory sales from the online environment. However, it is important for
the organization to consider the negative impact of posting details about the company online
(Zhu, and Chen 2015). Thus, it should be noted that the organizations should post content wisely
after analysing the factors affecting the behaviour of the consumer; then will not face difficulty
in attracting people in the environment. Thus, the above mentioned essay highlighted
information about the advantages and disadvantages of social media marketing in the business
environment.

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References
Ashley, C. and Tuten, T., 2015. Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory
study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1),
pp.15-27.
Bridget, k, Stefanie, V, Becky, F & Gabrielle, J 2015, “new media but same old tricks: food
marketing to children in the digital age”, vol. 4, Iss,2162-4968.
Bruno, G, Aikaterini, M, Daniele, P, Joonas, R, et. al 2016, “social media marketing efforts of
luxury brands: influence on brand equity and consumer behavior”, vol. 69, iss, 01482963
Chang, Y.T., Yu, H. and Lu, H.P., 2015. Persuasive messages, popularity cohesion, and message
diffusion in social media marketing. Journal of Business Research, 68(4), pp.777-782.
Felix, R., Rauschnabel, P.A. and Hinsch, C., 2017. Elements of strategic social media marketing:
A holistic framework. Journal of Business Research, 70, pp.118-126.
Godey, B., Manthiou, A., Pederzoli, D., Rokka, J., Aiello, G., Donvito, R. and Singh, R., 2016.
Social media marketing efforts of luxury brands: Influence on brand equity and consumer
behavior. Journal of business research, 69(12), pp.5833-5841.
Jones, N., Borgman, R. and Ulusoy, E., 2015. Impact of social media on small
businesses. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 22(4), pp.611-632.
Kelly, B., Vandevijvere, S., Freeman, B. and Jenkin, G., 2015. New media but same old tricks:
food marketing to children in the digital age. Current obesity reports, 4(1), pp.37-45.
Tuten, T.L. and Solomon, M.R., 2017. Social media marketing. US: Sage.
Whiting, A, & Deshpande, R, 2014, “social media marketing: A myth or necessity,” vol. 16,
pp.74-81,
Zarrella, D., 2009. The social media marketing book. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".
Zhu, Y.Q. and Chen, H.G., 2015. Social media and human need satisfaction: Implications for
social media marketing. Business horizons, 58(3), pp.335-345.