Social Media and Social Marketing: A Comprehensive Overview

This essay delves into the realm of social media and social marketing, providing a comprehensive overview of their significance in today's world. It begins by defining social media and social networking, highlighting their crucial role in modern communication and business. The essay then explores the advantages of social media marketing, such as improved brand awareness, increased website traffic, and enhanced customer engagement. It also addresses the disadvantages, including vulnerability to negative reviews and the time-consuming nature of managing social media presence. Furthermore, the essay differentiates between social media and social networking, clarifying their distinct communication styles and goals. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of social media and social marketing for businesses, summarizing their benefits and challenges. The essay utilizes references to support its claims, offering valuable insights into the evolving landscape of online marketing. The essay is available on Desklib, a platform providing study resources for students.

Running head: SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL MARKETING
Social media and social marketing
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Name of the Author:

1
SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL MARKETING
Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................2
Advantages of social media and social marketing...............................................................2
Disadvantages of social media and social marketing..........................................................3
Differences between social media and social networking...................................................4
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................5
Reference List......................................................................................................................7

2
SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL MARKETING
Introduction
Social media can be defined as an electronic form of communication by the aid of which
the internet users create communities online, and they share information with each other. The
users are also able to share various information with each other like different ideas, message each
other personally and are also able to share contents with each other such as videos or photos.
Social media, at present, has taken an essential place in every people’s life (Lee, Choi, Kim &
Kim, 2014). Many people around the world are using social media, and it is also used for the
promotion of business. Social networking is the process by the help of which both personal and
business relationships are maintained. By the help of social networking, the creation and also the
process of maintenance is carried online. Social media can be considered to be a part of social
networking. Social networking is an essential part of today’s world (Klausen, 2015).
Advantages of social media and social marketing
With the help of proper creativity and proper strategy social media and networking can be
used for a better promotion of the business (Aichner & Jacob, 2015). It has been seen in the
present context of business that 78 percent of the companies around the world make use of social
media to advertise their business. With the aid of social marketing the brand awareness can be
improved by a huge margin. With the aid of social media it becomes easier for companies to
spread the information about the products which are provided by the company (Zafarani, Abbasi
& Liu, 2014). The mission and the vision of the company are also stated to the consumers easily
by the aid of social media. With the implementation of social media in the business the flow of
traffic on the website of a company is increased by a huge margin. The main advantage of social
media and social marketing is that the products and services of a company are promoted easily
and a lot of customer base is converted by the help of social media and social marketing. There

3
SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL MARKETING
are a lot of people around the world who use social media every day. With the help of promoting
the business on social media a company is able to gather a lot of customers and they are able to
target all the different kinds of customers (Wang et al., 2017).
With the implementation of social media a company is able to create a buzz among the
people of social media with the help of promotion of the products and services of the company.
With the implementation of buzz the products of the company reach out to many users of the
social media. In the present context of business it can be said that with the aid of social media
companies around the world have been very much helpful (Wang et al., 2017). A good
connection with the customers of the company is done by the help of social marketing. In the
present business it have been seen that companies around the world are struggling with the
concept of social marketing since it is merely a new kind of business which is being conducted in
recent time. With the help of social marketing a company is able to gather various data from the
consumers. The companies can use these data in deciding what are the changes required for their
products and services needs to be improved to meet the various needs of the customers (Van
Noorden, 2014).
Disadvantages of social media and social marketing
One of the main disadvantage of doing business by the help of social media and social
networking is that with the implementation of social media a company becomes vulnerable to the
various negative reviews of the various users in the social platform. Some of the negative
reviews might be intentional (Seargeant & Tagg, 2014). If a product have a good number of
negative reviews then many consumers avoid themselves from using the product and this effects
the company by huge margin. In the modern context of shopping a lot of users but their products
online which have good rating from the consumers who have already used the product. In Social

4
SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL MARKETING
media a negative review travels faster and in no time a company becomes bad in the eyes of the
new customers. They refrain themselves from using the products of the company and the
company not only loses its customers but also fails in attracting newer ones.
While conducting business by the help of social media companies have to rely on heavy
advertisements (Kane, Alavi, Labianca & Borgatti, 2014). In the present context of online
marketing there are presence of huge number of advertisements which sometimes frustrates the
customers. The various social media are aware of the various implications of advertisements on
business but no steps have been taken (Kane, Alavi, Labianca & Borgatti, 2014). There are
presence of a huge number of tools by the aid of which social media learning can be learned and
8implemnted but it takes a lot of time to go through these norms. Doing business by the aid of
social marketing is very time consuming and many companies refrain themselves from doing so.
With the implementation of social marketing the companies have to be very active in their social
media handle so that the customers are entertained and are updated on the various activates of the
company. The environment of social media is constantly changing and evolving so companies
needs to stay up to date with the various changes if they want to be at par with the various
changes in the social media market.
Differences between social media and social networking
The communication which is used in social media and social marketing are very different
from each other. In social media, a user is doing all the talking, and they do not have to listen.
Whereas, in social networking, the users have to talk as well as listen. In social media, a user is
publishing, different images, infographics, white papers, videos as well as e-books (Kim &
Hastak, 2018). After posting all these different kinds of stuff, the user hopes that someone will
be interacting with them regarding this. In social marketing, when a user joins different groups or

5
SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL MARKETING
networks, then they have to talk and listen carefully to the other people present in the group so
that they can promote their brand in a better way. If in a social network post and talk about their
brand all by them, then they will not be able to promote their brand in a proper way. If things are
not appropriately listened in a social group, then they will not be listened to by another user
present in the social network group.
One of the most significant differences between social media and social marketing is that
the goals of using both the platform are entirely different. By using the social network, an
individual looks forward to increasing their fan following and foster the relationship with those
fan followings whereas the goal of using a social media is to create a buzz in the community
regarding a particular issue or topic (Saxton & Wang, 2014). With the interaction done in social
media, the bottom line is solidified, and the acquisition of data is made, and the sales for e-
commerce is conducted in an enhanced way.
Content is not a very useful concept for working in social marketing, but it is an
outstanding concept to be kept in mind while posting something in social media. In social
networking, interactions with different people are done on some content which is already
available and gather ideas from each other (Bazarova& Choi, 2014). In social media, a user
generally wants to drive the engagement of other users of social media on their content. So, it is
imperative to choose the content wisely as the interest of the user of the social media depends on
the quality of the content which has been shared by a particular individual. To keep the audience
engaged in social media, it is imperative to post meaningful and exciting content (Vogel, Rose,
Roberts & Eckles, 2014).

6
SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL MARKETING
Conclusion
To conclude it can be said that social media and social marketing have become a very
important aspect in today’s world. There are various disadvantages of prolonged use of social
media and social marketing yet there are various ways by the aid of which they are very useful.
In the present context of modern it can be said that social media and social marketing are one of
the major aspect of business conduction. A lot of companies around the world have taken up to
social media to advertise their business and gather more customers for the company. People all
around the world are active on social media at least once a day. Gathering fans and being famous
have become very easy with the presence of social media in the world. With the aid of social
media an individual gets in touch with various influencers around the world and they can easily
grow their brand on the platforms of social media.

7
SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL MARKETING
Reference List
Aichner, T., & Jacob, F. (2015). Measuring the degree of corporate social media use.
International Journal of Market Research, 57(2), 257-276.
Bazarova, N. N., & Choi, Y. H. (2014). Self-disclosure in social media: Extending the functional
approach to disclosure motivations and characteristics on social network sites. Journal of
Communication, 64(4), 635-657.
Kane, G. C., Alavi, M., Labianca, G., & Borgatti, S. P. (2014). What’s different about social
media networks? A framework and research agenda. MIS quarterly, 38(1), 275-304.
Kim, J., & Hastak, M. (2018). Social network analysis: Characteristics of online social networks
after a disaster. International Journal of Information Management, 38(1), 86-96.
Klausen, J. (2015). Tweeting the Jihad: Social media networks of Western foreign fighters in
Syria and Iraq. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 38(1), 1-22.
Lee, J. K., Choi, J., Kim, C., & Kim, Y. (2014). Social media, network heterogeneity, and
opinion polarization. Journal of communication, 64(4), 702-722.
Saxton, G. D., & Wang, L. (2014). The social network effect: The determinants of giving
through social media. Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly, 43(5), 850-868.
Seargeant, P., & Tagg, C. (Eds.). (2014). The language of social media: Identity and community
on the internet. Springer.
Van Noorden, R. (2014). Online collaboration: Scientists and the social network. Nature news,
512(7513), 126.

8
SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL MARKETING
Vogel, E. A., Rose, J. P., Roberts, L. R., & Eckles, K. (2014). Social comparison, social media,
and self-esteem. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 3(4), 206.
Wang, S., Tang, J., Aggarwal, C., Chang, Y., & Liu, H. (2017, June). Signed network embedding
in social media. In Proceedings of the 2017 SIAM international conference on data
mining (pp. 327-335). Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
Zafarani, R., Abbasi, M. A., & Liu, H. (2014). Social media mining: an introduction. Cambridge
University Press.