Pros and Cons of using social media for business.

With the rise of social media, companies now have a new and FREE way to market their brand and products. They have new ways to reach targeted consumers, new ways to network with consumers and other brands, and most importantly a new and more effective way to build a brands customer base.

PROS

• Reduced marketing costs
• Increased traffic to your website
• Greater customer engagement
• Increased networking and interaction opportunities
• Increased brand awareness

Marketing costs are greatly reduced when using social media as a marketing strategy because it is, essentially, free. Apart from extra add ons and paying for sponsorships etc. the use of social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are completely free.

Using social media as a business is a fast an inexpensive way to reach almost half of the World’s population, as 42% of the population is active on social media. On Instagram alone, 80% of the people active follow at least one business on the platform and approximately 60% of people on the platform say they discover new products on the platform. Being active on social media will allow for greater customer engagement and better interaction with different customers and businesses.

Social media platforms are a way of reaching new and potential customers, as well as reaching customers from a businesses targeted segments. A lazy search on social media by consumers may lead to them coming across new brands, allowing for greater brand awareness. For example, Absolut Vodka released a campaign across social media platforms about a limited edition Vodka bottle. This helped them achieve a five point lift in brand awareness. This shows the great reach and effectiveness social media can have as a marketing strategy for businesses.

CONS

• Less control over marketing
• Mistakes made on social media are hard to rectify
• Web is continuously being flooded with more and more content
• Not having a clear strategy may result in reduced benefits
• Needs daily monitoring

Using social media as a marketing strategy means a business will have less control over it. This is because multiple users can interact with content shared by businesses through retweets, likes, comments and shares. These interactions are often the reason why businesses utilise social media as a marketing tool, however when these interactions turn negative it will result badly for your businesses marketing campaigns and social media platforms.

Mistakes made on social media are hard to rectify and often they are followed by negative customer reviews, which can be seen by all social media users, which can harm your business further.

For example, the New England Patriots (NFL team) set up an automated system on Twitter to thank fans, however the system had no filter on it. This enabled inappropriate language to be filtered to the 1 million fans that follow the twitter account. This mistake made by the New England Patriots caused uneasiness amongst fans.

ChryslerAutos (car company) posted a tweet to the business Twitter page saying “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to *** drive”. Customers located in Detroit would take offence to this, which would be very damaging to the business and hard to rectify.

As social media becomes more and more popular worldwide, the web is becoming more and more crowded. Because information sharing is free on most social media platforms, the web is getting crowded with more spams and content that is irrelevant to users day by day. This makes it harder for companies to reach segmented audiences with valid messages to resonate.