Social Network – Company (Benefits and Issues)

A range of companies and organizations are at various stages as they change their marketing budgets to where research shows consumers will most likely be ( facebook for example), however the fact that this is now becoming a very serious part of the overall strategy for even the biggest companies in the world can’t be ignored.Social networking has changed the way of getting information. A very simple example is how technology has made coke and Pepsi change their style of advertisement and how other components have influenced to that change. The following subheading will explain the benefits including customer relationship, increase product and brand awareness marketing, increase success of new product launches, as well as the issues such as security, and identity theft.  

• The benefits of social networking to promote a business

Social networking may sound fluffy, but it can transform into real benefits for the business It can help the business owner to find the right person, market any particular product or even better to find a manufacturer. In San Diego State University a professor, William Baker, shows in a survey around 1,600 executives and fount that firms that rely extremely on external social networks scored 24 percent higher on a measure of radical advance than organization that don’t.

In fact, a senior vice president of corporate affairs and productivity at Coca-Cola, Clyde Tuggle, says that business future depends on the continued ability to connect with their customer around the world, one person at a time. Social media and digital communications will help to be even more comfortable and effective in these new spaces .

1) Building customer relationship

Social networking is really dominant to serve for building customer relationship. Basically, business only needs to set up a page in a common social site such as facebook, gather the community or customer of your particular product, provide useful and significant information, and frequently update the network. As soon the customer notice that this is a place to share their experience and find relevant information about their purchase the will be pleased to join the community. After everything is set, the business would add more features for example, FQA, blogs, discussion board, and review. The more you can connect the people, the deeper they will feel the personal connection to your product. With time, your business will build a better relationship with the costumers.

2) Increase Product & Brand Awareness Marketing

By increasing online presence of a products and/or brand the social networking sites will increase awareness marketing.  When the business/company decide to forms a group or a promotion on a social networking sites, the social network will remind the customer/members of particular brand and website with every interaction as well the information is usually positively  received by the member/customer.  It was shown in the iProspect Search Marketer Social Networking Survey that 48% of search marketers proactively  upload information and content on popular social networking sites to drive traffic and create brand Awareness2.

3) Increase Success of New Product Launches

The chance to be read vital information at social sites is much better than if you post on the traditional methods of advertising because nowadays people spend a lot of their time doing activates on the net or/and interacting with their networks. As a result, social network helps to increase the achievement of new product because it gives the opportunity to investigate the related society on particular products. By giving to the society a voice in the process can increase loyalty and warranty accomplishment when a new product is launched. For example, Coca- cola use the facebook social networking to get feedbacks, comments from their fans. In fact, coca cola have several pages on facebook about Coca cola such as the Coca-cola page which has 11,974,652  fans which show how the society could guide and contribute in the product development process.

• Issues

1) Security and the Social Network

Social networking sites are very easy and common, basically everyone can start socialising thru the net, without any complications, and therefore it is a worry, it becomes dangerous. By using email, offenders usually have less options of getting; harming a computer but social networking sites can give the offender a lot more ways to attack your computer. In other words, not permitting the use of social networking sites is not longer that easy to get rid of, sometimes it isn’t possible because they are used by many companies today for recruiting and marketing. The preventions available are not completely secure, neither signature based nor behaviour based products are 100 percent efficient; however, by combining both, the chances are slimmer. Senior Technology Consultant, Graham Cluey, said “For many businesses the idea of controlling social networking by simply imposing a black block on such sites is impractical”. This mean that social networking need something more slight and coarse such as data loss monitoring to watch for a particular types of information passing outside company as well using an treatment polices will help to reduce the illegal use of certain sites and technologies while compromise access to those who require it.

2) Social sites are not that effective for building brand awareness

Social sites have proven not be effective for building brand awareness,  unless the business being advertised has been around long enough to be remembered and advertised by customers. Social sites mainly a rise interest in possible new customers, advertising sales and their customer service. Brand awareness is most likely to be built through big advertisement on TV, banners, newspapers, and other repeated ads which focus mainly on the brand. However, social sites help to build brand Awareness in an indirect manner, especially through long term satisfaction and influence of community. This is the most obvious disadvantage of social sites. But even businesses should no regard it as big constraint.

Overall, all business need to be where their customers are and social networking are certainly the opportunity of a generation in terms of creating a long- term connection with the customers.  Social networking is really starting to become a motivation for marking because it is offer a free service that can have huge impact in business life. Certainly, it take some work to get it going and to maintain a constant presence but if the product owner utilize social networking correctly it is effective for reaching a large audience. Social networking has issues that business needs to take action about such as security and privacy issues.

Action that business should take for further issue:

1)      Organizations should develop policies governing the use of consumer services for business purpose.

2)      Organization should learn how to hold and develop the potential that the borderless enterprise brings into play.

3)      Use a data loss impediment technology to prevent intellectual property and private data from being unintentionally share on web 2.0.