HI6008 Semester 1/2018: Social Media in Business - Advantages

This report delves into the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing social media networks within a business context. It begins with an introduction highlighting the prevalence and impact of social media on modern businesses, noting its capacity to transcend cultural boundaries and influence consumer behavior. The report outlines the project's objective, which is to understand the role of social networks in business growth, analyze the benefits of social media in organizational development, and evaluate the weaknesses or disadvantages that may adversely affect businesses. A comprehensive literature review examines various perspectives on the topic, citing research on the marketing, communication, and sales aspects of social media, as well as potential drawbacks such as trademark violations, hacking risks, and negative user-generated content. The report concludes that while social media offers significant advantages for businesses, careful consideration of its potential pitfalls is essential for successful implementation.

Running Head: Social Media 1
Business Research
Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Social Networks in Business

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Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Project objective..........................................................................................................................................4
Project scope...............................................................................................................................................5
Literature review.........................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................11
Reference list.............................................................................................................................................12
Appendix...................................................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
Social media has a huge primacy in today’s business world. The businesses are getting huge
advantages due to use of social media networking. It has power to control and impact people by
reaching them in irrespective way of cultural indifferences. There are number of business that
has dependent on the social networking as it gives huge benefits them to increase the sales and
revenues in sophisticated manner. The social media can be applied in any business as there are
no hard barriers exist in its process (Xenos, Vromen and Loader, 2014). The growth of the
business can be done in an efficient way with taking consideration of the social media. There are
number of examples of companies that use social media strategy such as Toyota, Adidas, Titan
and many more brands that are using social media tool to expand its business in a significant
manner. This topic has been opted for this research as it facilitates in understanding the wide
concept of the social media advantages and disadvantages in business. The aim and objectives of
this research will be defined in an effective manner to increase the concept of the research. The
topic will be critically reviewed in this paper with the help of various authors’ journal articles
and books. At last, the conclusion will be drawn by evaluating the entire research.

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Project objective
The objective of the research is to search out the advantages as well as disadvantages of social
media and its role in the business. It has become vital for the business to understand the use of
social media as it increases the sales and revenues of the company. The major objective of the
research is defined below:
 To understand the use of social networks in business for expanding the growth of the
business.
 To analyse the benefits of social media in business and its role in developing the growth
of the organization.
 To evaluate the weaknesses or disadvantages of social media that impacts the business in
an adverse manner.

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Project scope
The scope of the business research is wide as it provides significant information about using
social media in the business. At the time of making a systematic study of literature, this research
will discover advantages and disadvantages of social networking in businesses. Along with that
this paper will give few illustrations of current industry who are taking advantages of social
media for increasing the attention of the customers. This research will offer help to business as
literature review made can help them at the time of using social media in the business.

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Literature review
Overview
As per the recent survey, it has been analyzed that billion of people are active in social
networking and a wide range of people is socially linked with each other. The use of social
media has become easy for people as it has decreased the distance of places. It has become easy
for people to connect with each other due to search features and engines in social network
platforms. According to Paquette, (2013), Due to extreme use of social media platform, the
benefits of it make sure number of businesses to opt social media networking for connecting
customers. The message regarding the services and products can be conveyed in easy manner
with the help of social media networking which enables businesses to articulate the experiences
of customers. For example there are most people who spend their time to search out the
destination and holiday packages for their vacations on social media sites (Laroche, Habibi,
Richard & Sankaranarayanan, 2012). Many people like to share their experiences of the services
which they get through social media sites. It helps to increase the ratings of the business that
attract number of people towards taking services from the businesses. It has been found that the
users of Facebook said that their friends, acquaintances and families’ pictures and check in
attract them to visit the same places or taking services such as accommodation facility restaurant,
hotels and many more. On the other hand bad reviews on the business through social media can
impact the business in an adverse manner.
Advantages of social networking in business
After identifying the role of social media in the businesses and benefits related to it has been
recognized in literature. There are a number of researchers that have stated that marketing

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strategy without using social networking has become outdated and to support in business,
accepting the use of social media wisely has become essential for the business. The business
owner can obtain efficient knowledge regarding customers due to enhancement of traffic in
social networking sites. It has been analyzed that the making a site or webpage for the company
act as a self forward of business, it is essential for the business to make aware their customers in
an appropriate manner. According to Fuchs, (2017), an awareness of customers has increased
due to media posts in social sites which being the reason of their curiosity to find out more about
the products and services that is benefitted for the business. These kinds of activities not only
liable for creating traffic but also encourage the sites of owner. The crawler of search engine
identifies their visitors who visit the sites of the company even after the searchers have forgotten
about visit. The SEO strategies has appropriate role as they can understand that what sorts of
visitors are trying to approach and whom they would like to link with for potential prospects.
The use of social media networking is not limited up to providing the knowledge about the
products and services rather it has significant role in marketing, communication, increase in sales
and research. In the context of marketing, it has been found that around 90 percent of market
experts have claimed that social media is only the reason behind expanding the exposure of the
business (Lindsay, 2011). The use of social network strategy considerably decreased the cost and
time spent through companies on marketing. There are number of benefits such as expansion of
brand awareness, increase in inbound traffic, improved customer satisfaction and cost effective.
By using social networking marketing policy can enhance the awareness of people towards the
products and services that amplify the business visibility in the market. The use of social
networks helps companies in connecting with huge range of audiences. In the context of
communication, the use of social media has increased as the employees of company can discuss

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ideas and post the query on it. As per Laroche, Habibi & Richard, (2013), the major benefit of
social advantage that it permits employees of the company to easily communicate in an efficient
way. This social media networking helps business to take decision in quick manner. Along with
that the feedback of the customers can be easily read by the owners of the business and they can
take appropriate action to improve the negative points through services or products that impact
the customers. It has been found that better communication with consumers has the potential to
enhance the brand loyalty of the company. Along with that the online shopping market has
become boom for enormous players such as Wal-Mart, Alibaba and Amazon. It has been found
from the research of Robischon (2017) that Amazon is one of the biggest electronic commerce
online shopping companies all over the world. The revenue of the company has increased by
US$135.98 billion in 2016 and due to effective strategy the company has sold around 26 billion
products.
Disadvantages of social networking in business
As per Kirtiş & Karahan, (2011), challenges in social media marketing process creates number of
issues for the business to exist transparent in their web pages as well as provide each descriptions
become hard. Executing and communicating by social sites defines that risky at the time of
intense time mainly when customers are not feeling happy within them because of the bad
experiences. That is why, before executing the social media in to businesses, drawbacks
regarding to it shall be recognized. It has been analysed that the two way communication has
become the major reasons of issues as the process of it between organization and customers
taken a lot of time and it is necessary for both parties to have patience to take commitment
(Stelzner, 2014).

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It has been found that trademark and copyrights violation is considered as the major issues that
are faced by the business involved in social media. It has become the challenge for many
businesses to save one’s own copyright and trademarks from virus, hackers and malwares. The
customers are facing issues due to use of identified company’s brand name to sell the services as
well as products (Van Laer, 2014). It has been found that there are number of businesses that use
brand name while promoting its services on social media networking and when visitors purchase
services they have to face the issues of fake promotion that spoil the brand image in an adverse
manner. Along with that as per Constantinides, Romero & Boria, (2008), the involvement of
third parties in social media platform has become the challenges for the companies to evaluate
the use of trademark and brand name to make sure that the name of the brand is not misused by
others.
There are various drawbacks of social media networking in using the business such as hacking,
inside risks, clear strategy, cost, time waste and harassment. Hacking is considered as the process
of attaining the irrelevant access to hack the information of the business. The sensitive data can
be hampered by the hackers as there are many companies that have become the suspect of it for
instance, Ashley, HBO, JP Morgon and many other companies. The privacy of the data of the
user of collected information has been concerned that faced by number of companies that is why
it is vital for the business to understand the measures as well as implications that can be adopted
to protect violation of gathered data. Trust is the key factor of success and it is vital for the
business to maintain it for developing the customer loyalty (Sarker, Ahuja, Sarker &Kirkeby,
2011).
Twitter and Facebook are social networking companies that have their own policies to take care
of the data of the users. It is essential for the business to ensure that their customers should be

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aware about the websites of the company for which they are searching for. Business should focus
on strong password and codes to secure the data and same things companies should provide to
genuine clients for making them sure that they are dealing with good companies. According to
Stephen & Galak, (2012), user generated contents (UGC) are considered as the huge tools that
are depended for creating the brand images. User generated contents use the content of other
companies such as message, photos, blogs or video to make comparison and review of number of
other companies. Along with that the negative feedback is considered as the large drawbacks of
social media as it has the power to switch loyal customers from one brand to another. These
kinds of disadvantages are majorly dependent on the services that are provided by the business
them for instance, if customers of the business are happy through the services. The positive
comment will be made (Muresan, 2017).

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Conclusion
In the limelight of above discussion, it can be concluded that the use of social media in the
business can bring the huge advantages for the business. It facilitates them to increase the sales
and revenues of the company. there are number of organization have adopted social media
platform of incorporated marketing plan because of the development of networking sites such as
Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. However, the use of social media has significantky positive as
well as negative impact on the business but to remain linked with the customers, the platform of
social network are effective choice which go well with effectively in this ever changing world.

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Reference list
Constantinides, E., Romero, C. L., & Boria, M. A. G. (2008). Social media: a new frontier for
retailers?. In European Retail Research (pp. 1-28). Gabler Verlag, Wiesbaden.
Fuchs, C., 2017. Social media: A critical introduction. Sage.
Kirtiş, A. K., & Karahan, F. (2011). To be or not to be in social media arena as the most cost-
efficient marketing strategy after the global recession. Procedia-Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 24, 260-268.
Laroche, M., Habibi, M. R., & Richard, M. O. (2013). To be or not to be in social media: How
brand loyalty is affected by social media?. International Journal of Information
Management, 33(1), 76-82.
Laroche, M., Habibi, M. R., Richard, M. O., & Sankaranarayanan, R. (2012). The effects of
social media based brand communities on brand community markers, value creation
practices, brand trust and brand loyalty. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(5), 1755-
1767.
Lindsay, B. R. (2011). Social media and disasters: Current uses, future options, and policy
considerations.
Muresan, R. (2017). Cyber security spending to reach $90 billion in 2017, Gartner
says. Businessinsights. Retrieved from<https://businessinsights.bitdefender.com/cyber-
security-spending-2017>