Impact of Social Media on Business

Watch out for that bird! Imagine you are skydiving, you are visiting one of the most beautiful countries in the world and you want to share that experience with your loved ones and friends. Why not send a postcard? Oh wait, you’re already back from the trip by the time that postcard has reached, or it got lost in the mail. If only there was an alternative. This isn’t 1990. You have a platter of platforms to share your adventure.

Webster’s dictionary defines social media as-“forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos).”In simple words, social media, are various public platforms where people can share their views, stories, etc. with the help of various mediums. Starting with websites such as MySpace, Orkut, and Facebook, etc. it is now estimated that there are about 200 social media websites in the world.

Social media has increased connectivity, freedom of expression and has also opened doors to many opportunities. One aspect we might fail to see is that of the impact that social media has on businesses. A business usually runs on its exposure to clients, advertisements and the kind of services that they offer. If the exposure of business reaches more people then, the business benefits economically from this exposure. This is where the social impact of social media comes into the picture.

Apart from increasing brand awareness and sales social media has some hidden advantages for your business. These include targeted advertising, partnering with influencers, product management, staying on top of industry news and also helps keep an eye on the competition and retargeting. The most important thing it does is, it bridges the gap between the customer and the business.it helps the business to know more about its customers and consumer base and vice-e-versa. With this, social media helps benefit business in one or the other way.

There are two sides to a coin. Hence social media can also have many negative impacts on your business. The biggest threat that it poses is, that a mistake on social media is very difficult to rectify. With the horizons that social media offers, any mistake cannot be accommodated and becomes difficult to manage. Other than this, negative customer reviews, comments about your brand can damage your brand’s reputation and also damage the business that comes in.

In conclusion, whether we like it or not, social media is here to stay and can impact your business the way you model it on social media. It has the potential to generate profit but also has the capability of shutting your business down. Functioning without social media has become difficult for a business in today’s day and age, but with the correct and smart use of this phenomenon, your business may just become the next Google.