Service Business University: Social Media and Business Communication

This essay delves into the multifaceted impact of social media on contemporary business communication, particularly within the service sector. It defines social media, providing examples of platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and highlights its role in connecting businesses with customers, promoting brands, and gathering valuable data. The essay traces the evolution of social media from its inception in 1997 to its current dominance, emphasizing its significance in a competitive business environment. It explores how social media has transformed communication, marketing, and customer relationships, citing statistics on social media usage and its implications for businesses. The essay also examines the potential dangers, such as negative customer reviews and competitor activity, while also emphasizing the importance of employee conduct on social media. The essay concludes by acknowledging both the positive and negative impacts of social media, asserting its integral role in modern business and its potential to enhance customer engagement and business growth. The essay draws upon various studies and surveys to support its arguments, illustrating the dynamic and evolving nature of social media's influence on business operations.

The impact of social media on contemporary business communication
Service Business
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Introduction
There are many definitions of social media in existence from the day the first social
media platform was invented. Here we define social media as collections of multiple online
designs platforms used for communicating with people in all parts of the global without having
to meet(Obar and Wildman 2015). The social media platforms allow sending and receiving of
information instantly with immediate feedback if the parties involved are online at the same
time. Some of the known examples of social media include, pinterest, Instagram, Twitter,
Facebook, email, WhatsApp, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn among others. The modern business
environment operates on an in a very competitive environment which calls for grabbing any
available opportunity that increases its customer base. Most of the businesses today have turned
to social media marketing to connect to the current customers as they lure new ones to buy their
products, promote their brands, and foster new business and by using these platform, they gather
information for decision making(Edosomwan et al. 2011). The first social media platform was
invented and came into existence in 1997. This social network was known as ‘Six Degree’ and
was allowing people to create a profile, invite friends who are on the same site as well as send a
friend request to those who were not having social sites account profile of the same(Edosomwan
et al. 2011). It was until the 2000s that other social media platforms started to emerge such as
MySpace and the most prominent of all social media platform today Facebook, among others.
This essay focuses on the impact social media has brought in the modern business on the way
they operate. It shall mainly focus on the service business i.e. those that deal with intangible
products, offer professional skills like counseling, transports, security etc.
The most valuable business asset is the act of communicating effectively with both the
employees and its customers. It is useful in persuasion, informing, and education to customers on

about the service or products being provided. Interpersonal communication is important for
managers and business owners and they should earn this skill in order to communicate
effectively with the employees and other interested parties. Modern communication has really
changed the way business operates(Pentina, Zhang, and Basmanova2013). The way to
communicate to customers has also changed over the last one and half a decade ago. Any
business that wants to do well in the modern competitive environment than its competitor must
embrace good things brought by social media or risk becoming dominant to their competitors.
Social media has brought existing, new and potential customers near to the business and it is
upon them to grab their chances. The existing literature review will help us to understand how
social media has changed business operation.
A 2010 U.S. study stated that social media consumes 12% of the total time spent on the
internet. The study stated that Global online time spending between people with ages 15 and
above on social media accounts for 15.6% with 4.5 hours on average per individual internet
users. This to business would mean a better chance to capture their new and potential clients. The
business that targets young people have a better chance to utilize social networking sites with the
full faith of increasing their customers. Pew Research Centre reported on 2018 February that
three-quarters of American adults use social media for connecting with each other, entertain
themselves, share information and engage with news contents. Pew also indicated that in early
2005 only 5% of American adults used at least one of the social media platforms.They state that
in 2011 the figure doubled to half.There are over 69% of American adults using one of the social
media platforms today.A survey done by GlobalWebIndex stated that 28% of time spent online
is consumed by social networks with an average user logging 1.7 times daily accounting for not
less than 12 hours weekly and 1.66 times as per 2013.

Any business should be conscious that social media is crowded with potential customers,
the legal practitioner (government), employees and competitors too. The action of a business on
social media, therefore, will determine its success and loyalty to the above parties(Vinerean et al.
2013). There are only two options i.e. losing or winning on social media.
A 2016 research done by CMI and Marketing Profs, reported that B2B marketers
distribute content on more than six social media platforms on average. This is a lot of effort to
market your business which has not been easy for any business. This, of course, requires people
who are not easy to lose the track no matter the slowness before picking, since tracking your
customers on social media is tiresome(Safko2010). Proper preparation must be done in order to
avoid plenty of perils which can befall a foolhardy brand that enters market unprepared and
unaware.
For business to thrive in social media environment, several factors must be considered
which are but not limited to scrutinizing your engagements with social media, the information
posted and when is it posted, the benefit of information posted to the business entity, the
competitors existence, and involvement in the social media, the budget allocation for social
media existence among other important factors(Qualman 2010).Employees’ existence on social
media may mean well for business and also endanger the business as well. Proper scrutiny of
business-related postings should be warned against unless otherwise directed by the
management.
Some of the other dangers related to business use of social media platforms include
negative customer review. This happens where a message intended to be positive turns poisonous
to the business what we may refer to use bouncing back and is dangers as it damages the

reputation of a business(Kaplan and Haenlein 2010).When ‘negative’ information has been seen
and viewed by customers, business reputation continues to get damaged people continue
commenting, sharing and disliking the information. It is, therefore, not easy for the business to
control the views of customers on certain information spread on social media.
Some customers result to use a social media platform to express their dissatisfaction with
a company’s treatments, services or products instead of directly consulting the business. This too
is dangers trends brought about by the existence of social media on the contemporary business
environment(Laroche et al. 2012). You need to carry out frequent scrutiny to your social media
activities to avoid being caught up by the time.
Business competitors also exist on social media and this means that they copy what your
business is doing on social media, and may use this as a weapon to strengthen the competitive
muscle. You need to ensure that what you post on social media is not related to things that put
your business at a competitive disadvantage(George, Rovniak and Kraschnewski 2013). You
should also be able to keep checking what your competitor is doing in order to counter their
actions so as not to be left out.
Business has no control over what people share on social media platforms. When Alicia
Keys, the BlackBerry creative director tweeted on social media asking the BlackBerry customers
to keep the conversation going it was discovered that she had used an Apple iPhone which is not
a brand from the blackberry. This damaged the reputation of the company by uncontrollable re-
tweets from people wondering whether the blackberry workers were loyal to their brands
themselves(Erdoğmuş and Cicek 2012). Later from the very company central page again after
some time, there was another tweet with a different brand phone asking customers to buy

blackberry phones. A number of other tweets followed as if BlackBerry was not aware(Culnan,
McHugh and Zubillaga 2010). Keeping an eye on what is happening with competitors is
important so as to know what people are saying about your business. Having forums, meetings
and discussion will create a good platform for exchanging views and information about the
business progress.
Social media has enhanced good customer relationship as a result of the interaction.
Connecting directly to your customer has been simplified by the emergence of social media
platforms. A company can create a website or profile, invite people to like it and start the
conversation with customers directly. These interactions are important as businesses are able to
understand customer needs and how the will go about meeting them as well as know their areas
of improvements. Customers can also share information with others especially if they feel their
friends need them(Aral, Dellarocas and Godes 2013). This will multiply the number of clicks and
views of information with a potential of increasing more contact with the customers.
Social media offers friendly advertisement budget compared to other media outlets and
channels. Putting a small amount of budget on social media advertisement can improve your
business network and until the target audiences are reached is when your budget gets
depleted(Hutter et al. 2013). This means framing information for a target group can be easy as at
times there are options to select age limits.
The global audiences are reachable through utilization of social media. A good example
is Alibaba which sells products to millions of people across the globe through the use of social
media networks. The official business profile is the best to use when you intend to grow your
business first instead of using personal names and profile.Curated content and unique products

attract millions across social network world. An estimated 665 million people are using
Facebook across the globe and close to 500 million are on Twitter today(Bruhn, Schoenmueller
and Schäfer 2012). If only one-third of this come across your business products you are likely to
grow very fast.
Social media has therefore brought a lot of changes in the contemporary business environment
impacting greatly on the way business operates. For instance, businesses can clearly target the
right customers, advertisers can create and develop marketing and advertising messages to a
particular known group, and competition has been heightened(Cook 2017). Business can now
keep their customers thinking about their business most of the times, answer questions directly
from their customers as well as take responsibility for their own actions. Allocation of resources
has been made easy and this has reduced wastage of the time and energy.
Conclusion
Social media has brought both positive and negative impact on how business operates
today. There is a negativity associated with the use of social media and at the same time
positivity has also been witnessed. Social media is here to stay, and no business is likely not to
use it in one way or another. There are over 66 million people using Facebook today across the
globe with other 500 million known to be on twitter. This is a good number for business to target
in order to increase customer base as well as increase profitability. Facebook is the leading giant
social media which offers a big potential for businesses to lure more customers to buy their
products. It has the highest market share across the globe and the consequences of utilizing it are
as big as itself. Employers should be very keen in informing their workers to maintain a good

reputation on social media and more so control what the post on Facebook. This does not mean
you restrict them to their posting but advise them to avoid negativity.

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