Social Media Networking: Strategies for Enhancing Market Presence

This report analyzes the usage of social media networking in enhancing the market presence of an organization's products and services. It discusses the importance of online presence in today's competitive environment and how social media applications and websites can attract more customers. The report explores the internal and external advantages of social media networking, including improved communication, better hiring policies, enhanced brand value, and cost-effective marketing. It also addresses the disadvantages, such as reduced employee productivity and potential data security issues. The report emphasizes the need for organizations to understand customer opinions and adapt their strategies to stay ahead of competitors, while also cautioning against excessive or unplanned social media activities that could harm the organization's brand value.

Social Media Networking.

Contents
1. Introduction.........................................................................................................................3
2. Project Objective.................................................................................................................3
3. Project Scope.......................................................................................................................3
4. Literature Review................................................................................................................4
The advantages of social media networking can be defined as internal activities and external
market positions:........................................................................................................................4
Internal benefits of social media networking:............................................................................4
External benefits of social media networking;...........................................................................6
Disadvantages of Social Media Networking in the Organization..............................................7
5. Conclusion...........................................................................................................................9
6. Reference List........................................................................................................................9
7. Appendix................................................................................................................................9
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1. Introduction
The social media marketing usage has increased in mainstream marketing as an essential and
effective tool for promoting the products and services of the organization. The usage of social
media marketing tool can be influential in improving the market presence and marketing
strategies of the organization for the products and services. In today’s competitive
environment there are many benefits and advantages of using the social networking as an
effective tool for promoting the business and associated products and services to the target
customers. There are various analytical tools utilized by organizations for performing various
analysis on the data collected from social media websites and applications. This report would
focus on understanding the implementation of the social media marketing in the organization.
There are various disadvantages associated with the usage of social networking impacting the
productivity and performance of the organization.
2. Project Objective
The objective of this report is to analyze the usage of social media networking in enhancing
the market presence of the products and services of the organization. It is very important for
organizations in this cut-throat competitive environment to create their online presence to
attract more and more customers with the help of different social media applications and
website promotions. The organizations need to retain their market position and improve their
market shares through penetration of new markets with the help of social media networking
websites and applications wherein the customers can access the product or service
information from any location without physically visiting the outlet. The organization would
encounter various disadvantages associated with the implementation of the social media
networking strategies internally and externally in the organization. (Lazer, 2014).
3. Project Scope
The project scope would define the range or coverage of the essential information required
for understanding the influence of the social media networking on improving the customer
base and inducing customers to make the purchase of the products or services with the help of
social networking. Today, social networking is a billion dollar industry which developed a
new set of marketing technique which is cost effective and can reach to the better customer
base in lesser time. The usage of social media networking is not limited to external benefits
but heavily utilized internally by the organizations in order to hire better suitable candidates
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for performing variously specialized profiles and develop better communication between the
functional departments. There is the enormous usage of social networking internally for
organizations to maintain better coordination between divisions operating in different
geographical locations and receive expert support from the people working in any functional
department. This would support in generating better employee engagement activities in the
organization thereby inspiring employees to get motivated and promote their ideas strategies
and concerns to the right people to derive better results. The next section would focus on the
disadvantages of using excessively social networking in the organization which would be
related to data privacy and security, shifting of focus from productivity to excess usage of
social networking.
4. Literature Review
The social media networking is considered one of the most effective marketing tools in
today’s competitive market conditions due to better accessibility to the new customers and
increasing the recognition of the product or service brands among the currently existing
customer base. The organization can utilize the social media networking strategies internally
and externally for improving the brand loyalty and product recognition among the customers
and improving the employee engagement facilities among all the employees and the senior
management committees. (Michael, 2012).
The advantages of social media networking can be defined as internal activities and
external market positions:
Internal benefits of social media networking:
• The organization can improve the communication process between the employees
belonging to different functional departments through the establishment of internal
application which would enhance the communication and can be used as a medium to
disclose policies, employee benefit strategies, news articles related to organization,
conducting social events and displaying their success stories, encouraging employee
participation in corporate social responsibilities, announcement of professional development
training and development programs, and strategic changes in the organization. This would
help in improving employee relations and provide a platform for the employees to coordinate
with the top managers and executives. This would improve the trust and confidence of the
employees in the operational and functional activities of the organization and also support
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them in getting the expert help from different functional departments to resolve their queries
and problems. (Healy, 2014).
• The social media networking platform is beneficial for improving the hiring policies of
the organization and generating a better pool of candidates for executing specific roles and
responsibilities in the functional departments. There are various online job portals and social
media platforms like LinkedIn wherein organizations can post their vacancies on the social
network and encourage potential employees to participate in the recruitment and selection
process of the organization. This would improve the professional reach of the organization to
hire the best talent across geographical and demographic boundaries and benefit the
organization through their services. The social media platforms like LinkedIn can also help
the organizations to hire the top management executives which require help from professional
headhunters and specialized recruitment agencies.
• The organizations are able to promote their cultural and operational activities conducted
in the organization and how the employees are treated in their functional department across
the social media websites. This would impact the perception of the potential employees who
are willing to join the organization and become a part of it. This would improve the brand
value of the organization and they can display the initiatives related to improving employee
satisfaction level to the employees currently working in the organization. This would
adversely impact the motivation level of the employees and they would be encouraged to
utilize their utmost potential to improve the growth and development of the organization
through their best possible performance and productivity.
• Another advantage of social media marketing internally for the organization would be to
promote social learning or learning through websites and knowledge sharing among the
functional department employees. This is essential for the growth and development of the
organizations that the employees are encouraged to improve their professional skill sets using
the social media platforms and online courses in order to work at the better position in the
organization. The employees could always be encouraged and promoted to share their
knowledge and skill sets to the employees working in different functional departments of the
organizations so that it would improve the productivity and performance of the other
employees. This activity would improve their internal coordination and reduce the possible
gap generated due to lack of communication between the departments. (Jaffe, 2015)
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• The social media networking platforms can be utilized in disaster situation wherein the
organization encountered an emergency situation or issue which needs to be disclosed and
announced across all the employees working in the different location wherein the
organization is executing their functional and operational activities. The organization would
be able to provide instructions and announce their strategic decisions through the platform so
that the employees don’t get panic and create a situation of havoc in the organization. The
employees could improve their coordination in such critical situation and follow all the
instructions provided to them by the top management executives and respective managers of
the functional departments in order to mitigate the loses and avoid any serious damages.
External benefits of social media networking;
• The organizations have shifted their marketing and advertising budgets from Above the
line advertising and promotional activities like advertising on television and radio towards
social media networking platforms. It is advisable in the current situation to shift the
marketing and promotional budget towards social media marketing because the total cost is
comparatively much cheaper than those traditional methodologies and the customer reach is
much larger than them. This concludes that the reach and impact of social media marketing
platforms are much higher than the traditional promotional activities providing an edge for
social media networking. The investments and the total cost is relatively less and the reach
through the usage of internet is beyond the geographical boundaries across the globe. (Butler,
2015)
• The introduction of the online market made it mandatory for many organizations to
introduce their online facilities which require support from social media marketing platforms
and activities to improve the website traffic and additional facilities to the customers compare
to traditional methodologies of sales. This would ultimately impact the total sales achieved by
the organization during any financial period with minimum investments in logistics
management through online activities. This website presence would help the organization to
retain their market position and potentially loyal customers’ base with their branded products
and services. The new customers could be attracted and induced in purchasing online
products and services through directing them to the official website of the organizations
through promotions on social media platforms and applications.
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• The organizations could opt for unpaid or paid social media advertising facilities so that
they could improve the number of queries and convert these potential customers into actual
customers through proper communications and direct sales strategies. The organizations
could track the total number of inquiries and sales achieved by the organization during any
particular period and modify their social media activities and strategies in order to increase
their sales revenue and profits. The paid advertisements are also comparatively cheaper than
many other traditional methods of promotions and advertising that it provides benefits for the
organizations in attempting their investments in social media networking.
• The social media networking would help the organizations to improve their
communication with the customers and understand their opinions and suggestions in relation
to the performance of the product or services. The customers could raise their concerns,
complaints and suggestions through websites and social media platforms which is now-a-
days taken very seriously by majority of the organization so that they could make the
necessary alterations to the current product or product line and generate ideas from the
suggestions to develop new products or service combinations which would attract more and
more customers towards the products. This helps the organization to stay ahead of their
competitors and take advantage of becoming the first innovator of the innovative product or
services and capture better market share. This also helps the organization to understand the
reaction and perception of the customers towards the organization and generate the need to
make necessary modification to portray in a better manner. (Benkler, 2016)
• The organizations could make the necessary analysis on the customers’ activities on the
social media platforms and their official websites and develop new product combinations or
introduce new additional discount offers to induce the customers in making the purchase of
those products surfed earlier. The organizations could additionally understand their target
audience in an effective manner without conducting primary data research activities and
penetrate the markets in an effective manner.
Disadvantages of Social Media Networking in the
Organization
Although there are many advantages of social media networking there are many
disadvantages associated with excess or without proper planning or social media activities.
These disadvantages would adversely misdirect the marketing and promotional activities of
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the organization and lead to hampering the brand value or customer base of the organization.
Some of these disadvantages of social networking would be as follows:
• The usage of the social media networking in the workplace could have the adverse effect
on the productivity and performance of the employees. According to one of the researchers
conducted by Nucleus Research, if the organizations allow their employees to check their
Facebook and other social media applications during the working hours lose at least 1.5
percent of the productivity of the employees. This could also distract the attention of the
employees for the majority of the time and divert their attention from work-related activities.
The employees could also misuse the social media platforms to spread negative thoughts or
comments against each other and increase the differences of the gap between the functions
departments and employees working in the same department. This would impact the
employee relation activities and employee engagement in the organization thereby hampering
the overall performance of the organization. (Lardi, 2013).
• The organization could pose a threat of leaking crucial information from the organization
to their competitors or other organizations using social media platforms hampering the data
security and privacy policies. The employees could misuse the platform for stealing some
crucial information and trade secrets which could hamper their sales revenue and
profitability. The organizations would require maintaining additional precautionary measures
to maintain the high level of secrecy or data privacy from getting stolen or hacked by
professionals from the database of the organization.
• The organization needs to keep a track of activities on the social media platforms
constantly all the time since this activity is time sensitive and require respond and strategic
actions to the customer’s complaints or queries in adequate time-interval or it could hamper
the brand image and value of the product or services and organization. The customers would
become irritated and post negative reviews or opinions leading to increasing in the negative
publicity level of the organization which would impact the potential customer base and
thereby overall sales revenue and profitability. The customers could intentionally post
negative reviews or opinions and the result would impact the organization.
• The usage of non-paid advertisements might not result in deriving large target audience or
potential customer base for the organization. The case of paid advertisements cannot assure
that the target audience would be the only potential customers flashed with the
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advertisements. This indicates that the advertisements would be flashed across all the
subscribers of the social media networking application while the majority of the subscribers
might not be the actual target audience of the products and services. This would decline or
reduce the complete purpose or objective or adopting the social media networking as the
potential advertising strategy. (Piskorski, 2014).
• The increase in the current usage of the resources since the organization would require
investment of capital, human resources and many other additional resources in order to keep
a track of the activities of the customers on their official websites, replying to the customers
in due time interval, creating new videos and content to be posted on the social media
platforms and applications, capital investments in paid advertisements, and proper
coordination between the team members across the departments. These investments may or
may not be able to derive effective results in form of increased sales revenue and profitability
for the organization.
5. Conclusion
The social media networking gained importance and relevance in the late 2000s and has now
become one of the most influential marketing tools for the organizations. The organization
needs to initially evaluate the potential benefits and disadvantages in an effective manner
before making their final decision related to making the investments in using the social media
networking tool for promoting their products and services in the potential market and target
audience. There are many advantages but equally, there are many disadvantages which the
organization needs to monitor and eliminate the possibility of their occurrence in order to
derive better results from the process of implementation.
6. Reference List
Lazer, D(2014). Social Marketing: Perspectives and Viewpoints. Homewood: Richard D.
Irwin
Michael S (2012), Social Media Marketing Industry Report, “How Marketers are using social
media to grow their businesses”, Social Media Examiner
Healy.N (2014). Comprehensive criteria to judge validity and reliability of qualitative
research within the realism paradigm.
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Jaffe. K (2015); Life After The 30-Second spot; Energize your Brand with a Bold Mix of
alternatives to Traditional Advertising
Butler.Q (2015); Consumer purchasing on the internet: Processes and prospects
Benkler, Z (2016). The Wealth of Networks. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-
300-11056-1. OCLC 61881089.
Lardi, J (2013). Social Media Strategy – A step-by-step guide to building your social business
(1st ed.). Zurich: vdf. ISBN 978-3-7281-3557-5.
Piskorski, B (2014). A Social Strategy: How We Profit from Social Media. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-15339-1.
7. Appendix
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