Literature Review on The Impacts of Social Media on Marketing
A Literature Review on The Impacts of Social Media on Marketing
Introduction
In the contemporary business world view, social media applications continue to gain more usefulness in daily activities (Alalwan et al., 2017). The most recognized social media platforms globally include LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Due to their influence on daily work, these platforms affect how people think and act in certain situations. Many research studies argue that social media is the most influential and efficient part of society that determines most activities in the community (Masuda et al., 2022). In addition to the social lives, these platforms contribute significantly to the company’s strategy and aim in marketing. Numerous articles address the continuously growing influence of social media on organizations’ marketing.
According to Alalwan et al. (2017), firms continue to develop mechanisms in which they could apply social media platforms to reach new potential customers and better their clients’ experience with the organization. The main reason behind these efforts is to increase profitability by reducing the cost of communication that the company faces when using other communication methods (Alalwan et al., 2017). Reserch suggests that social media is a novel idea in the firm’s marketing practices and processes due to its impact on the business processes. The various effects of social media on business operations make the marketing practices easier to undertake despite the risks involved in improving efficiency and effectiveness (Masuda et al., 2022). This literature review looks into the current research findings to understand the positive impacts of social media use on the firm’s marketing practices and processes.
Review
Social Media on Consumer Attitudes
Literature on social media shows a significant effort by researchers to study the impacts of these platforms on customers’ buying behavior, perception, and attitudes (Masuda et al., 2022). This focus forms a substantial part of the positive research on social media use in conducting marketing. For instance, the study found that many customers depend on social media to get information that leads them to purchase certain products (Masuda et al., 2022). This group of customers requires a practical use of social media platforms when conducting marketing to prevent creating a negative perception and attitude in the potential customers, who develop negative buying behavior. Since marketing depends significantly on the customers’ attitudes and perspectives towards th firm and its products, avenues that could influence these two aspects are crucial to the marketing department (Adetunji e al., 2018). Consequently, social media is ranked among the essential elements that any company must not take for granted or overlook its potential impact on the market. Previous research focused on the acceptance of social media by customers. These studies attempted to explore crucial aspects of social media in shaping customers’ approach to the business.
Social Media Customer Service and Marketing
Current research shows that social media is the primary form of interaction between companies and their clients due to its instant attention (Adetunji et al., 2018). In most cases, customers expect their queries on social media to be attended to within an hour, making them pro-social media use in various business activities. Since these people believe that companies are interested in social media platforms and interaction with customers, they are likely to get information about their products more easily through social media applications (Adetunji et al., 2018). Although other forms of marketing play an essential role in attracting customers to buy the product, social media reaches more people who, in most cases, may lack time to follow firms’ activities on televisions or in newspapers.
Some companies have incorporated social media chat platforms to support online marketing activities and reach as many clients as possible (Bose, 2018). When used properly, these engagements between the firm and customers create an additional marketing niche that provides more areas for the business to spread its influence and gain the people’s approval to offer goods and services. For instance, one study conducted on Nike shows that the firm responds instantly when a customer mentions its main Twitter handle (Bose, 2018). This shows how the firm focuses on creating a positive attitude and buying behavior of the customers by ensuring they are always happy and satisfied with their services. Research suggests that firms must take care of passive complaints that the customer service team may ignore since they hurt the client-company relationship, significantly undermining the customers’ attitude towards the entity and its products or services. Again, the literature asserts that providing the right social media customer service attracts better intentions of customers to do business with the firm.
Social Media’s Ability to Reach a Bigger Audience
The existing literature shows that marketers’ social media efforts cause a significant exposure of their company to the market (Alalwan et al., 2017). Social media is considered a crucial method of creating brand awareness with clients and potential customers. Despite social media platforms having a similar goal or working mechanism for the audience, they may not influence all people equally (Hsiao et al., 2020). Various research studies assert that different platforms may affect a particular market aspect. Therefore, these studies advise that the firms engage in a proper market segmentation to ensure that the correct social media platform is chosen for the right group and arrives at its targets.
Literature shows that segmenting the market areas into appropriate groups for each social media platform must be complemented with the use of visuals. When the firm uses the right visuals on the correct segment, they immediately grab the customers’ attention, creating a much-desired impact (Hsiao et al., 2018). Another way social media helps the company reach its clients is by ensuring that the platforms are always engaged. This mechanism requires the firm to ensure they build conversations with their customers rather than waiting for them to start the discussion topics. Using external controls to measure the company’s soal media activity is critical in measuring the platforms’ reach in the market (Yadav & Rahman, 2018). Lastly, reserch shows that social media marketers must ensure that they retain a consistent tone when engaging with their customers to prevent the creation of uncertainties that affect the client’s confidence and willingness to use social media as a tool to gain an understanding of the firm’s products.
Social Media and The Word of Mouth
A critical aspect of social media is its ability to get the word out about the company. When the firm engages in social media engagements with its customers, it creates additional conversations and discussions with other community members about the company (Subramanian, 2018). These conversations help generate a positive society grapevine on th company products that could serve as informal marketing. In addition to the physical society conversations that arise from the company’s social media activities, there are the large online communities (Subramanian, 2018). These are individuals who depend on social media to get information about the daily activities in the community. The sharing of information obtained from the company’s social media platforms by social media users helps reach a higher number of people who then develop an interest to look into the company’s social media to gain a better understanding (Subramanian, 2018).
However, the social media users’ ability and willingness to share information regarding a certain company depends on the quality of information presented by the online social media marketers. One criteria that online communities look at when deciding whether to trust the firm’s online making content is the number and type of reviews by other social media users. Similarly to the physical marketing strategies where family members compleimets act as approval and influence their friends’ chiuces on cmoany products, these reviews are an approval to people who trust the social media (Maria et al., 2019). Reserch shows that 72 percent of people see online reviews in a similar perspective as personal recommendations from family and friends (Maria et al., 2019). Several best practices found n the existing literature on the best way to gain positive reviews is including free products, discounts, and after-sales services in social media marketing.
The Financial Implications of Using Social Media
When social media marketing is approached properly, it creates a positive impact on the brand and gives the company more returns at a lower cost (Appel et al., 2020). According to the available literature on social media marketing, the various techniques used target social applications and networks to increase people’s band awareness. Studies suggest that this marketing method is more focused and specific, making it more productive than other methods (Appel et al., 2020). For instance, social media engagement attract numerous views, shares, and publicity for the particular firm. All these benefits come with limited or no cost at all. One way in which companies generate these views and shares is by creating content that is sharable and encourage feedback from the online viewers. When the business creates a friendly marketing language and approach on its social media subscribers, these users share the message to hundreds of other social media users free, earning the firm an increased attention and subscription (Maria et al., 2019). A company that fails to give this aspect the required attention loses on cheap opportunities that affect the entity’s productivity.
Immediate Feedback in Social Media Marketing
When a company uses social media to reach its customers, it receives first hand responses from the viewers who are not under the influence of rivals or other people (Yadav & Rahman, 2018). Therefore, the firm is able to get the correct customer views on ts brand image, client-company relationship, and reputation, as a result, the improvements on the various company aspects is doen in a more focused and informed approach that ensures that the actions taken reflect the actual situation on the ground. Yadav & Rahman (2018) suggests that firms must improve on this aspect by ensuring that the soauc media marketing unit resoisd to each client comnt for them to understand the reasons why their products and services perform the way they do I the market. Current research shows that companies that take the scil media engagements seriously attain a 20 to 40 per cent increase in their revenues.
Conclusion
This literature review looked into the existing research findings to understand the positive impacts of social media use in the firm’s marketing practices and processes. The review shows that social media creates various advantages on the companies that use them properly enabling them to gain better brand awareness and achieve improved customer buying behaviro, perspective and attitude towards the company and its products. Existing literature shows a significant impact of social media on the customer service, engagement, feedback which impact the client’s willingness to buy and the firm’s profitability. and A company would benefit immensely by studying the social media issues that reduce the benefits gained through online marketing to improve its reputation and improve its relationship with customers.
References
Adetunji, R. R., Mohd Rashid, S., & Ishak, M. S. (2018). Social media marketing communication and consumer-based brand equity: An account of automotive brands in Malaysia. Jurnal Komunikasi, Malaysian Journal of Communication, 34(1), 1-19. http://journalarticle.ukm.my/11726/1/24422-72176-1-PB.pdf
Alalwan, A. A., Rana, N. P., Dwivedi, Y. K., & Algharabat, R. (2017). Social media in marketing: A review and analysis of the existing literature. Telematics and Informatics, 34(7), 1177-1190. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0736585317301077
Appel, G., Grewal, L., Hadi, R., & Stephen, A. T. (2020). The future of social media in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 48(1), 79-95. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11747-019-00695-1
Bose, M. S. (2018). Social Media Marketing in Fashion Brands in Nike. International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research, ISSN, 2349-5162. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3678166
Hsiao, S. H., Wang, Y. Y., Wang, T., & Kao, T. W. (2020). How social media shapes the fashion industry: The spillover effects between private labels and national brands. Industrial Marketing Management, 86, 40-51. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019850118304425
Maria, S., Pusriadi, T., Hakim, Y. P., & Darma, D. C. (2019). The effect of social media marketing, word of mouth, and effectiveness of advertising on brand awareness and intention to buy. Jurnal Manajemen Indonesia, 19(2), 107-122. https://journals.telkomuniversity.ac.id/ijm/article/view/2234
Masuda, H., Han, S. H., & Lee, J. (2022). Impacts of influencer attributes on purchase intentions in social media influencer marketing: Mediating roles of characterizations. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 174, 121246. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004016252100679X
Subramanian, K. R. (2018). Social media and the word of mouth publicity. International Research Journal of Advanced Engineering and Science, 3(2), 95-100. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kalpathy-Subramanian/publication/327366758
Yadav, M., & Rahman, Z. (2018). The influence of social media marketing activities on customer loyalty: A study of e-commerce industry. Benchmarking: An International Journal. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/BIJ-05-2017-0092