Business In The Digital Age: The Role Of Social Media As A Business Accelerator
by Abdul Aziz Mondal Marketing 29 July 2023
Unsurprisingly, over the decades, the business landscape has shifted in light of the advent and increased incrementation of social media. Many commentators would agree that social media has been one of the most impactful modern inventions, essentially redefining the way we communicate as a society and subsequently affecting business models, especially in marketing. This article explores the different ways social media functions as a business accelerator while discussing the advantages of its increased use by companies worldwide.
A New Purpose
Gone are the days when social media was merely used as a tool for sharing your daily life online. It seems we’ve taken a big leap – although personal posting is still one of the primary uses of these platforms, there are countless other purposes for social media these days.
The ties between the online world (and social media specifically) and business have grown stronger than ever in the past ten years. The online world is now an extension of the business realm, a place for both businesses and ordinary people to establish contact with one another. ExpressVPN’s blog piece about the rise of social media résumés explores a new trend in which people use their online profiles to get the attention of companies and showcase their skills and abilities. Now, just like how candidates can make themselves known this way, hiring managers can use social media to find potential candidates to hire.
This is especially useful in creative industries, where a traditional paper résumé is not always enough to show what candidates are capable of. Managers on the hunt for the ideal person to fill, let’s say, a design or a video editing position, for instance, can benefit from looking at social media accounts that display the user’s creations.
Social Media As A Business Enabler
As revealed by Statista, over 80% of the American population uses at least one social media platform, and we know this trend is mirrored in several other countries. With that in mind, let’s discuss some other advantages of social media and how companies can benefit from taking advantage of it.
One major advantage of the use of social media by businesses is marketing. Whether big or small, marketing is a component that every company nowadays recognizes as vital to its survival. Through social media, companies can connect and bond with their customers on a more personal level, maximizing brand loyalty and increasing customers’ trust.
Customer service, for instance, used to be much more bureaucratic when the only way to get in touch with a company was through a call or an e-mail. Instant messaging offered by platforms such as Instagram or Twitter provides an effective way to answer queries or complaints from customers quickly and easily.
In addition to this, working with influencers has become another massively popular way for companies to reach larger audiences. Word of mouth has always been the most efficient marketing strategy that every company strives for.
When people share or recommend a brand to a friend or relative, people getting the recommendation are more likely to try the product or service in question because they know someone who is actively using it. Through endorsements and partnerships, people with a large social media following can bring value to businesses like never before, for instance, through sponsored posts or giveaways.
Each Platform Is Different
When thinking of business and social media, there is one platform that instantly comes to mind: LinkedIn. Marketed as a social media platform for work, LinkedIn is indeed a great place to expand a company’s network and strengthen its influence. It allows businesses to engage in pertinent discussions that are relevant to their fields. It’s also a great way to source candidates as we discussed in the first section.
However, the advantages we mentioned above apply to almost all social media, from LinkedIn to Twitter and TikTok. In the case of Twitter, it’s the perfect platform to share key news about your business or rapidly communicate with your followers. In turn, the visual nature of Instagram and TikTok allows for a more immersive type of engagement. Facebook, while it may not be as popular as the aforementioned platforms at the moment, has an immense reach thanks to its over two billion users.
The possibilities that tech brings to the table when it comes to the transformation of business are potentially endless. Using social media to grow a business, as simple as it might be, requires dedication and strategy.
Different platforms require different approaches, and different audiences require a different social media marketing style. Having said that, social media will undoubtedly continue to change the business realm as we know it, as will other promising technological advancements such as blockchain, for instance, testing the boundaries of digital transformation to an extent we could only imagine a few years ago.
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