Business Research: Social Media Marketing - Benefits and Challenges

This report, titled "Advantages and disadvantages of using Social Network at business," explores the significant role of social media in modern business, particularly in promotional and marketing activities. It highlights the benefits, such as cost-effectiveness, broad reach, and enhanced customer engagement, exemplified by increased brand loyalty and website traffic. The report also addresses the challenges, including the potential for negative comments, the need for specialized staff, risks related to copyright and trademark, and the importance of privacy and security. The discussion emphasizes the balance between opportunities and challenges, advocating for data-driven decision-making and strategic adaptation. Ultimately, the report concludes that while social media marketing is essential, businesses must carefully consider and mitigate the associated risks to maximize profitability and protect their brand reputation. The report underscores that promotional and marketing activities on social media platforms is essential in today’s market.

Running head: BUSINESS RESEARCH
Advantages and disadvantages of using Social Network at business
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1BUSINESS RESEARCH
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to reveal the advantages and disadvantages of using social
networking sites as an important tool for promotional and marketing activities of various
organizations. The paper further sheds light on the strategies, the organization should follow
to ivercome the oddities they could face while using social media as a platform of marketing
and promoting their organization or various products of their organization.

2BUSINESS RESEARCH
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Project objective.........................................................................................................................3
Project scope..............................................................................................................................4
Literature review........................................................................................................................4
Advantages.............................................................................................................................5
Disadvantages........................................................................................................................6
Discussion..................................................................................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................11
Appendix..................................................................................................................................13

3BUSINESS RESEARCH
Introduction
In today’s ever changing market, the role of social media networks cannot be denied
in business organizations like service industry or tourism organizations. The purpose of this
paper is to shed light on the advantages and disadvantages of using social networks in the
business organizations. In today’s scenario, promotional activities and marketing on social
media is getting popular day by day as the cost is very low and with proper strategy an
organization can aim high and experience a huge increase in the profitability. There are also
some challenges in promoting and marketing in social media platforms and those are revealed
in this paper in details. The paper also highlights how the organizations can overcome the
huddles of challenges by implementing proper strategies in promotional and marketing
activities on social media platform.
Project objective
The main objective of this paper is to portray whether the usage of social networks are
beneficiary for the business organizations or not. Apart from that, this paper sheds light on
the future prospects of using social networks as a tool in business organizations. In today’s
market it is undeniable that social networking sites are a huge platform to share the details of
the products of any business organization, be it a tourism company or an organization from
the service industry, or any store of apparels. It is a matter of fact that using social media as a
tool can bring in many problems too in the organization and most of the business owners does
not realize how worse can things get sometimes due to using social networking sites for
marketing purposes (Van Dijck 2013). Thus the main objective of this paper is to highlight

4BUSINESS RESEARCH
the basic advantages of using social networking sites for business purposes and the hidden
disadvantages of it that can bring in severe harm for the organization. apart from that the
paper also highlights the strategies that the managing body of the organizations should take
up to fight the oddities they face in the activities like promoting and marketing on social
networking sites.
Project scope
The usage of social networking sites in business organization is a common thing in
today’s world, and it is seen that many organizations have seen the advantages of this tool
seeing the significant increase in profitability of the company or by noticing the graph of
sales getting higher after using social networking sites as a tool. This is an undeniable fact
that, in future digital marketing would take over any other marketing strategies as it is
statistically proven that the users of social networking sites have been increased by almost 70
percent within last five years and the number of people with internet connectivity has also
gone higher than ever (Walaski 2013). It is thus can be said that the future of marketing is in
digital marketing, but the business leaders should thoroughly look at the advantages and
disadvantages of using social media as a platform of marketing.
Literature review
The recent boom of social networking sites are bringing in new policies of marketing
procedure and it is seen that various organizations are using social media as a huge platform
to increase the salability of their products (Hays, Page and Buhalis 2013). This is because the
cost of marketing goods in social media is way cheaper than marketing the goods in other
platforms such as television, radio, hoardings and various other platforms. In the social
networking sites the cost is very low and the organizations get a huge audience (Sigala 2013).
This is the sole reason behind the he boost in marketing via social media websites nowadays,

5BUSINESS RESEARCH
but, as they say, every rose has its thorns; promoting products in social media can bring in
several issues in the organizations. The merits and demerits of using social media as a
platform of marketing are provided below.
Advantages
The organizations eye the larger audience in the social media sites as twitter has 313
million monthly users, and Instagram has 500 million users currently. Apart from these,
Facebook has the largest subscribers over 2 billion worldwide. Thus, it is evident that the
business leaders should target the huge population to make their audience while promoting
their products on social networking sites (Ukpere, Slabbert and Ukpere 2014). Apart from
this the social media offers the audience to share their grievances or excitements or giving
valuable inputs in the comments section and using that tool, organizations can update their
way of selling or way of operation(Sashi 2012).
Another huge advantage of social media marketing is that in most cases it is free of
charges and there are some paid advertisement options and those can be a brilliant tool for
promoting the products of a company (Hays, Page and Buhalis 2013). In most cases using
social media the business leaders increase their brand loyalty, as it is been proven that in most
cases, the people who follow the pages of a certain brand remains loyal in most of the cases
(Young 2012). It is also a matter of fact that if a company continuously updates their pages
with exciting offers and unique products the followers or subscribers of those pages would
become more loyal towards the organization (Shih, Chen and Chen 2013). For an example, it
can be said that, Nike owns a page in facebook and they continuously update their page with
latest picture of their products and with exciting offers that would attract a huge population.
Seeing these offers more people subscribe to their page and overall sales of the organization
gets increased (Young 2012).

6BUSINESS RESEARCH
Using social media as a platform of marketing the business leaders can get a increased
traffic in their mother website bringing in more profitability for the organization. apart from
this in social media platform the managers would get necessary customer feedbacks and they
can amend their way of doing business accordingly for the further improvement of the
organization (Lefebvre 2012).
Social media also can become a tool for conducting market research for the managers
of various organizations and they can chalk out their business plans using social media as a
platform of marketing (Sashi 2012). By this the managers will be able to point out the
opportunities and the matter of concerns for further business growth.
Disadvantages
Using social media as a platform of marketing can bring in many problems for the
organization, such as in the specified pages in social networking sites people can post
negative comments endangering the company’s good will and reputation (Hays, Page and
Buhalis 2013).
At times, it takes a huge time to maintain a page in social networking site for an
organization by making it highly interactive and popular. The companies should recruit some
specialized employees to deal with these types of promotional works on social networking
sites (Munar 2012).
At times absence of proper strategies for social marketing can lead to reduced
profitability for the organization and that may result in loss of reputation too.
Some organizations may face some negative comments by some customers and out of
rivalries some organizations may employ someone to post negative comments against

7BUSINESS RESEARCH
specific organizations, as in the social networking sites with full liberty of expressing feelings
anything can happen (Lefebvre 2012).
On internet many unethical persons can hack the web pages and can spread several
rumors regarding the good will and reputation of an organization. These kinds of activities
can potentially ruin any company’s reputation (Hays, Page and Buhalis 2013).
If the management of any social media site is not up to the mark, the organizations
would not see real improvements in this method and that may result in reduced profitability
in some cases (Pierson 2012).
Another huge issue that comes up in this case is problems related to trademark and
copyright. Protecting copyright and trademark is one of the most important tasks of an
organization as it is the sole representative of the intellectual property of any organization.
When the managers intend to promote their organization on social media they must look after
the copyright issues (Lesidrenska and Dicke 2012). Using social media as a platform via third
party organization or by the organization’s own media platform the managers should monitor
that their copyright and trademark is exclusive and no one is misusing it. Apart from that
another issue is theft of intellectual property; for an example, it can be said that, if an
organization launch a product exclusively online and they promote the product, someone can
copy the idea and launch it in another platform (Kent 2013). When an organization that
belongs to hospitality or tourism or service industry post anything regarding their exciting
offers or some plans on the social networking sites, there is always a high chance of these
ideas to get stolen. These are the cons of using social media as a tool for promotion and
marketing. These things are becoming very common nowadays and the management body of
the organizations must put in extra efforts to make sure it never happens (Hays, Page and
Buhalis 2013).

8BUSINESS RESEARCH
The most important issue faced in online promotion or marketing is the privacy and
security issues. The managing body must ensure that no one violates the rules and regulations
of the social media’s privacy policies (Hoang and Pishva 2014). The organizations must
invest a lot in technological advancements to protect their organization’s security from
unethical hackers as they can ruin the reputation of the organizations like anything. Thus, the
management must hire someone who is experienced in dealing with these type of issues to
get rid of such problems.
(Communication Theory 2017)
Discussion
It is a matter of fact, that, marketing and promoting online raise some opportunities
and challenges for organizations, as the targeted audiences get fragmented and proactive
(Hays, Page and Buhalis 2013). On the other hand, it can be said that the audience can

9BUSINESS RESEARCH
become more loyal towards the organizations lured by the exciting offers and discounts
provided by the companies (Munar 2012). Marketing and promoting products on social
media allows the organizations to collect data regarding the customer’s views, grievances,
satisfaction and other feelings about their product, and reviewing all those they can improve
their business operations accordingly (Baruah 2012). Along with it in today’s market there
are a lot of challenges waiting for the business organizations as they can face threats
regarding copyright and trademark issues and they can often get embarrassed by the negative
remarks of individuals on social media which can potentially harm their good will (Gambetti,
Graffigna and Biraghi 2012). It is fact that promotion and marketing in social media is the
future and no one can deny it feasibility in recent times, but the business leaders must not
forget the threats they have to face due to these activities. It is a fact that marketing online on
social media platform comes with many perks and challenges and the business leaders need
to understand the matters and take steps accordingly (Hays, Page and Buhalis 2013). In
today’s market the more a company invests in promotional and marketing activities the more
that organization experience increase in profitability, thus promoting and marketing online is
getting more popular day y day (Baruah 2012).
Conclusion
Thus, to conclude, it can be said that, in todays market promotional activities and
marketing on social media platform is immensely popular, and implementing proper
strategies any organization can reach the height of success within a very short time. But, this
rose also has some thorns and those are very sensitive issues to deal with, as any wrong step
can prove to be hugely expensive for the organization as some threats from online marketing
can ruin the reputation of the organization to the ground. It is a matter of fact, promotion and
marketing on social media is the future and it cannot be denied that by these activities, any

10BUSINESS RESEARCH
organization can reach up to the top in their industry. Thus, it can be said that online
promotional activities and marketing is the right option to choose in this changing market, but
the business leaders should consider this option with caution.

11BUSINESS RESEARCH
References
Baruah, T.D., 2012. Effectiveness of Social Media as a tool of communication and its
potential for technology enabled connections: A micro-level study. International Journal of
Scientific and Research Publications, 2(5), pp.1-10.
Gambetti, R.C., Graffigna, G. and Biraghi, S., 2012. The grounded theory approach to
consumer-brand engagement. International Journal of Market Research, 54(5), pp.659-687.
Hays, S., Page, S.J. and Buhalis, D., 2013. Social media as a destination marketing tool: its
use by national tourism organisations. Current issues in Tourism, 16(3), pp.211-239.
Hoang, N.P. and Pishva, D., 2014, February. Anonymous communication and its importance
in social networking. In Advanced Communication Technology (ICACT), 2014 16th
International Conference on (pp. 34-39). IEEE.
Kent, M.L., 2013. Using social media dialogically: Public relations role in reviving
democracy. Public Relations Review, 39(4), pp.337-345.
Lefebvre, R.C., 2012. Transformative social marketing: co-creating the social marketing
discipline and brand. Journal of Social Marketing, 2(2), pp.118-129.
Lesidrenska, S. and Dicke, P., 2012. Social-media platforms and its effect on digital
marketing activities. Маркетинг і менеджмент інновацій, (1), pp.44-52.
Munar, A.M., 2012. Social media strategies and destination management. Scandinavian
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 12(2), pp.101-120.
Pierson, J., 2012. Online privacy in social media: A conceptual exploration of empowerment
and vulnerability.

12BUSINESS RESEARCH
Sashi, C.M., 2012. Customer engagement, buyer-seller relationships, and social
media. Management decision, 50(2), pp.253-272.
Shih, B.Y., Chen, C.Y. and Chen, Z.S., 2013. Retracted: an empirical study of an internet
marketing strategy for search engine optimization. Human Factors and Ergonomics in
Manufacturing & Service Industries, 23(6), pp.528-540.
Sigala, M., 2013. A framework for designing and implementing effective online coupons in
tourism and hospitality. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 19(2), pp.165-180.
Ukpere, C.L., Slabbert, A.D. and Ukpere, W.I., 2014. Rising trend in social media usage by
women entrepreneurs across the globe to unlock their potentials for business
success. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(10), p.551.
Van Dijck, J., 2013. The culture of connectivity: A critical history of social media. Oxford
University Press.
Walaski, P., 2013. Social media: Powerful tools for SH&E professionals. Professional
Safety, 58(04), pp.40-49.
Young, T.E., 2012. The Everything Guide to Crowdfunding: Learn how to use social media
for small-business funding. Simon and Schuster.

13BUSINESS RESEARCH
Appendix
Appendix I