University Essay: The Impact of Social Media Marketing on Businesses

This essay critically reviews the impact of social media marketing on businesses, exploring both its advantages and disadvantages. It begins by defining social media marketing as a powerful tool for engaging consumers and increasing brand awareness through platforms like Facebook and Instagram. The essay highlights the benefits, such as improved customer satisfaction and the ability to build brand loyalty through personalized interactions. However, it also addresses the potential drawbacks, including the risk of tarnishing brand image due to negative comments or lack of control, and the time-consuming nature of maintaining an effective social media presence. The essay concludes that social media marketing is essential for businesses aiming to reach a wider audience, while acknowledging the need to carefully manage its potential impacts.

Running Head: LANGUAGE AND LEARNING 1
LANGUAGE AND LEARNING
AUTHORS NAME
UNIVERSITY OF AFFILIATION

LANGUAGE AND LEARNING 2
Introduction
Social media marketing is a marketing technique that offers universal interaction between the
consumers, business, and its stakeholders, through the community that is virtually networked.
Social media marketing in business refers to the process of attaining attention and traffic through
social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. The information
contained in this sites is usually user-generated, that means that anyone is able to post on this
sites without any restriction (Wilson,2010).There has been a tremendous use of social media
marketing in business, as a tool used to engage consumers. A lot of research has been done on
the effects of social media marketing in business. The main aim of this essay is to review
critically the impact of social media marketing in business. With the technology development,
and at an affordable cost, business operations have been revolutionized. The technology has
contributed to a paradigm shift in the way the business operates, and how communication works.
The presence and reputation of business in the market is social media driven (Tuten 2008).
Increase Brand awareness
Social media offers a lot of benefits to the business. First of all, social media marketing increases
the brand awareness. Implementation of a strategy to use social media will greatly increase the
recognition of business brand because the consumer target that the business engages with will be
broad. Use of social media gives consumers a chance to interact with the brand at a more
personal level. For an organization that has an already established brand, use of social media
provides the business with an opportunity to give the business a voice in the market and further
develop the brand. In the Fast-food advertising in social media article it is evident that the most
participant familiarity with the fast food brand stems their outlook towards Facebook

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advertisement(Gaber & Wright,2014). The participants further stated that they are more likely to be
engaged with the advertisement of their favorite brand with a goal of knowing about the
promotions and offers. It is clear that investing few hours on the social media marketing will
benefit the business brand, and with continuous use, it can generate larger business
audience("Benefits of social media for business", 2016).
Better customer satisfaction
Secondly, social media marketing ensures better customer satisfaction. Social media being a
communication and networking platform, voice creation of the business through this platforms is
very significant for company humanization. Consumers are grateful having the knowledge that
by posting comments to the organization pages, they will receive a response that is personalized
instead of automated response. Interaction with consumers at one on one level improves the
consumer loyalty. Loyal consumers spend a lot with the business and act as business
referrals("Benefits of social media for business", 2016). Fast-food advertising in the social
media article, among the factors that affect consumer purchasing behavior, is referrals from a
friend(Gaber & Wright,2014). Majority of the participants indicated that they are affected by the
advertisement that generates comments and likes from a friend on social media. They also
become fans of the brand that majority of their friend is a fan of. Social media marketing in
tourism and hospitality article has identified the use of social media marketing as a way of
informing the consumers about the possible activities within the organization. This can lead to a
long-term relationship with the consumers through awarding consumers based on their loyalty.
With every interaction on the social media with the consumer on social media is an opportunity
to demonstrate publicly the relationship between business and consumers.

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Tarnish brand image
On the other hand, social media marketing has its negative impact. First, social media marketing
can tarnish the brand image. In many, business organization, mostly the larger corporations,
social media marketing is handled internally by a different department or outsourced. The
organization needs to have the utmost confidence in the staff they employ to handle the
advertisement and social media updates. Whatever is posted on the social media is a reflection of
the organization brand image. Social Media Marketing to Increase Brand Awareness article, its
evident that aggressive marketing can drive away most loyal consumers (Monica&Balas,2014).
Consumers are not likely to stay on the social media page if the organization advertisement is
perceived to be too commercial (Petty,2008).Consumers comments can be negative or positive
regarding the organization brand. Lack of brand control can contribute to the tarnishing of the
organization brand. Trusting individuals who do not have the same objective as the business can
lead decline and inconsistent with the brand image (Jens, 2015).
Time consuming
Secondly, social media marketing is presumed to be time-consuming. Social media is likely to
create a lesser impact on the consumer because it has limited ability to be isolated and creative.
Majority of the social media post is mostly ignored or missed; this is because of the overflowing
newsfeed that is in a general environment that is fast-paced. Social Media Marketing to Increase
Brand Awareness article, clearly point out the demerit of social media marketing as it consumes
a huge amount of time resources (Monica&Balas,2014). An organization that opts to use social
media market needs to practice a lot of patience and persistence. Before any consumer makes a
purchasing decision of an item online, they first need to trust the business. For trusts to build it

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takes months and even years. Due to this reason, frequently posting is a must by the business.
More time and money will be allocated to ensure that the posting schedule is created and
contents are published on the social media page(Jens, 2015).
Conclusion
Social media marketing provides a great impact on the organization operates in today's world.
The impact is the same from small business to large corporations. Social media technology is in
continuous innovation to ensure the business goals and objectives are attained at the end of the
day. Depending on the use of the social media marketing, the activity can bear negative impact
or positive impact on the business. Social media marketing is no more an option but a must for
the organizations that deal directly with consumers and target to reach a larger audience. Social
media marketing is very cheap and most effective marketing tool to use. With a lot of
opportunities promised by the social media and challenges, a business must prepare itself to
tackle anything that comes its way.
What I have learned about this module on social media marketing, as well as based on my
experience, is that social media marketing can be of advantage or disadvantage to the business.
The impact of social media marketing depends on the user. Business can use social media to
attain a competitive advantage over its competitors or tarnish its brand name. Over the years, I
am more loyal to a business that offers a fast response to my query on a social media page.
Although I take time to trust an online business. A business that has online customer support
tend to gain more consumer trust.

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References
Benefits of social media for business. (2016). Business.gov.au. Retrieved 6 January 2018, from
https://www.business.gov.au/info/run/advertising-and-online/benefits-of-social-media
Gaber, H. R., & Wright, L. T. (2014). Fast-food advertising in social media. A case study on Facebook in
Egypt. Journal of Business and Retail Management Research, 9(1).
Jens, B. (2015). The Disadvantages of Social Media Marketing| concept9. concept9. Retrieved 6 January
2018, from https://concept9.ca/the-disadvantages-of-social-media-marketing/
Monica, B., & Balaş, R. (2014). Social media marketing to increase brand awareness. Journal of
Economics and Business Research, 20(2), 155-164
Pettey,C. (2008).Gartner Says Social Networks Are Attracting Too Much Traffic for Retailers to
Ignore. Gartner Research.
Tuten, T.L. (2008) Advertising 2.0: Social Media Marketing in a Web 2.0 World, USA:
Greenwood Publishing Group.

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Wilson, S. (2010): Social Media and Small Business Marketing, USA: University Business
Printing and Press
http://www.uav.ro/jour/index.php/jebr/article/view/381/pdf_146
https://scu.rl.talis.com/link?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.proquest.com.ezproxy.scu.edu.au
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