Social Media's Impact on Brand Awareness, Performance, and Growth

This report delves into the significant impact of social media on brand awareness, business performance, and growth, particularly for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). It highlights the importance of brand awareness for SMEs, emphasizing how it leads to increased sales, market share, customer trust, competitive advantage, and easier diversification. The report then explores the role of social media platforms in achieving these benefits, including customer service, engagement, social sharing, promotion, and building trust. The report concludes that active social media engagement can effectively enhance brand image, customer base, and overall business productivity and profitability. This report will help students understand the importance of social media in today's business environment.

The Impact and Importance
of Social Media on Brand
Awareness Business
Performance and Growth

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Importance of Brand Awareness for SMEs.................................................................................3
Role of Social Media on a SME’s Brand Awareness, Performance and Growth........................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
The brand is a business organisation’s design, term, name, symbol or any other
identifying feature that differentiates its own goods and products in the market from other
products in the operating industries. For the growth and development in addition to an increase in
their operational business performance, productivity and profitability in the consumer markets,
business organisations need to cultivate a highly reputable brand image amongst their
competitors in the operating industries (Cawsey and Rowley, 2016). This report assesses the
importance and impact of social media on brand awareness, business performance and growth of
Small and Medium sized enterprises.
MAIN BODY
Importance of Brand Awareness for SMEs
Brand Awareness is familiarity of consumers in the market towards the distinctive
qualities or image of a business organisation and the products or services it provides to the
consumers. Brand awareness of SMEs is immensely important to their operational performance,
productivity and profitability in the consumer markets and to provide them with a competitive
advantage against their competitors in the operational industries. This is because:
Increased Sales and Profitability: High brand awareness in the consumer markets directly
results in increased sales for the SME’s goods and services available in the markets as more
number of people in the total population are aware of the brand’s values, products and services in
the operational markets (Godey and et.al., 2016). This directly results in increased sales for the
SME’s goods and services and has an immensely positive impact on its productivity and
profitability in the consumer markets.
Increased Market Share and Customer Base: High brand awareness of SMEs in the consumer
markets increases the public interests in the SME and their goods and services which are
available in the consumer markets for customers to purchase, which directly results in increased

market share and customer base for the SME, as more people want to be associated with the
brand in the operational industries.
Trust: High brand awareness of SMEs in the consumer markets effectively helps the SME build
trust with their customers with the intention to further increase their operational productivity and
profitability in the consumer markets (Seo and Park, 2018). If an SME has high brand awareness
in the markets, then customers find it easier to trust the SME’s goods and services which
effectively increases the SME’s productivity and profitability.
Competitive Advantage: High brand awareness also helps SMEs to gain a competitive advantage
against their competitors in the operational industries so that their productivity, profitability,
market share and customer base can be effective increased.
Easier to Diversify Operations and Enter Global Markets: High brand awareness also helps
SMEs to diversify their existing operations and enter new global markets for increased
productivity, customer share and profitability. As more consumers within the industry in which
the SME operates are aware of their products and services this effectively eases the task of SMEs
entering global markets and diversifying their existing operations.
Increased Value of SME: Increased brand awareness of an SME in the consumer markets
directly results in an increase of the SME’s total value in the operational industries as more
people in the markets are aware of the business organisation and its products, services (Bilgin,
2018). This also results in increased brand equity of the SME as a separate asset and makes the
entire SME more valuable in public perception.
Differentiates from Competitors: High brand awareness of SME in the consumer markets
effectively differentiates its produced goods and services from other alternatives and substitutes
available in the consumer markets, which is also immense important to increasing their
operational productivity and profitability.
Role of Social Media on a SME’s Brand Awareness, Performance and Growth
As the digital age has ushered the widespread adoption of the internet by large sects of
the world’s population, the number of people across the world interacting with each other on
various social media platforms has also proportionally and consistently risen. This has presented

SMEs with a great opportunity to increase their brand awareness amongst the public by making
use of various social media platforms as they have become effective ways for SMEs to promote
and advertise their brand name and products to a large section of the population at little costs
incurred when compared to other means of increasing brand awareness amongst the consumers
in the industries. Social media platforms have grown to play a significant role towards an SME’s
brand awareness because:
Customer service: Social media platforms can be used by SMEs to provide effective and
efficient customer service to their customers at relatively little costs incurred. Though this
requires an adequately skilled customer service team, if conducted successfully, providing
customer service operations through social media platforms can have an immensely positive
impact on an SME’s brand awareness, as all customers who have a positive customer service
experience share their experience with other customers in the community, increasing SME’s
overall brand awareness and reputation in the operating industries.
Engagement: Social media platforms allow for increased interactions and engagements with the
customers by the SME (Dedeoğlu and et.al., 2020). This engagement and interaction of SME on
social media platforms can be with existing customers, potential leads and interested future
customers, effectively increasing the SME’s brand awareness and customer base in the operating
industries.
Social Sharing: All positive and funny interactions of an SME on social media platforms have
the potential to go viral and be shared amongst thousands of customers and vice versa. If an SME
is able to employ a skilled social media team, then they can significantly increase their brand
awareness amongst the public in the markets at relatively low costs incurred.
Promotion: Social media platforms can also be used by the SMEs to promote and advertise their
goods and services to a very large section of the population at relatively low costs incurred,
compared to other forms of marketing (Momany and Alshboul, 2016). This also effectively
increases the brand awareness of the SME in the public.
Trust: Constant interactions of the SME on social media platforms with existing and future
customers assures other customers that they can trust the operations and functions of the SME’s
brand and increases its brand reputation and awareness in the public.

There exists a direct relationship between a SME’s social media operations and their
operational performance, productivity and profitability. If an SME is immensely active on the
social media platforms, consistently engaging and interacting with new and existing customers,
they can effectively increase their brand image and awareness in the consumer’s perception and
increase their customer base and market share. This allows the SME to operate with increased
productivity and profitability in the consumer markets as increased number of customers become
aware of the SME’s brand and products, which also allows the SME to grow their operations and
become more productive and profitable.
CONCLUSION
Based on the findings of the report, it can effectively be concluded that social media
plays an immensely significant role in relation to the Small and Medium sized enterprise’s brand
awareness in the public and their operational performance, productivity, profitability and future
growth.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bilgin, Y., 2018. The effect of social media marketing activities on brand awareness, brand
image and brand loyalty. Business & Management Studies: An International Journal.
6(1). pp.128-148.
Cawsey, T. and Rowley, J., 2016. Social media brand building strategies in B2B companies.
Marketing Intelligence & Planning.
Dedeoğlu, B.B. and et.al., 2020. Effect of social media sharing on destination brand awareness
and destination quality. Journal of Vacation Marketing. 26(1). pp.33-56.
Godey, B. and et.al., 2016. Social media marketing efforts of luxury brands: Influence on brand
equity and consumer behavior. Journal of business research. 69(12). pp.5833-5841.
Momany, M. and Alshboul, A., 2016. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING: UTILIZING SOCIAL
MEDIA TO ADVANCE BRAND AWARENESS AND INCREASE ONLINE SALES.
International Journal of Business, Marketing, & Decision Science. 9(1).
Seo, E.J. and Park, J.W., 2018. A study on the effects of social media marketing activities on
brand equity and customer response in the airline industry. Journal of Air Transport
Management. 66. pp.36-41.