Project 3

Need for Social Media Presence for the Company

With growing technology advancements in the 21st Century, most businesses are opting to grow their brands by taking their business to the online space. While traditional avenues like newspapers and television are still reliable and important for most companies, the high adoption of the internet and social media for most people is making companies develop their presence on social media. Social media allows companies to build their brands, fully engage with diverse customers, and accomplish their marketing goals. As an intern in the current company, I find that not having a social media presence is a challenge for the company to reach out to millions of customers who do not know the presence and services provided by the company. According to Appel et al. (2020), billions of people globally use social media, as Facebook reports 2.38 billion active users monthly. This means that social media is a great platform for the company to impact its marketing practices and influence current and new consumer behavior. Soelaiman and Ekawati (2021) add that in the current age, information technology is developing rapidly and influencing how millions of people behave and relate to others and companies. With everyone depending on the internet to access information and connect with others, social media remains the most downloaded and used application. Social media presence is the only viable business strategy for the current company because of its minimal technical requirements, low costs, and high customer adoption and usage rate. Soelaiman and Ekawati (2021) hold that approximately 60 percent of consumers use social media to discover and use new brands and products. This proves that having a social media presence gives a company an avenue to reach out to several customers, market its products and services, and minimize its spending, especially on marketing. Raising brand awareness and growth is only possible if the company develops and sustains a social media presence.

The best solution to the company's lack of social media presence is by opening suitable social media platforms because brand awareness growth and increased customer relations can only be achieved by creating a social media presence at the company.

One of the best courses of action the office will deliberate on to enact the proposed solution is the type or kind of audience social media will target or is supposed to target. Finding the audience before creating different company accounts on various social media platforms is key. Within the workplace, different stakeholders, including marketing officers, employees, and the management team, must share ideas on who the target audience is for the company, future plans for the company, and who is set to be reached, but it has been a challenge to reach them. According to Appel et al. (2020), social media platforms allow companies to monetize users who are the current audience or new audience beyond the physical reach of the company. This means that understanding the target audience will help the company realize who must be reached by the social media platforms. This will help raise brand awareness and grow sales of the company.

The second course of action will be to decide the type of social media platforms the company should adopt, their costs, and their impact on the company. Building a social media presence at the company means aligning the brand's goals with the types of customers served. This means that specific social media platforms are more relevant to the company based on the dominant users and influence. This strategy will operate by assessing the types of users on a given platform and the specific content or customer engagement to be used on the users. For instance, Tazeen and Mullick (2023) argue that Instagram and Facebook are the dominant social media platforms used to influence customers' purchasing behavior towards green products. Thus, agreeing on the use of particular social media platforms based on the company's goals will help attract much user attention since some platforms like Facebook and Instagram allow heavy sharing, are highly trusted, and are used by most influential people.

Lastly, agreeing on the types of content to be shared on the platforms, how the marketing team should be strategized, and the types of brand influencers to be used will mark the final step towards the adoption of social media presence. Teams within the company should agree on the types of content to be created, who will run the platforms, and how customer engagement will be done. Brand influencers are important social media marketers who should be considered since they will help create and improve brand awareness on the internet and boost sales. Soelaiman and Ekawati (2021) hold that since social media allows companies to engage with their customers, most brands look for employees with social media skills since social media platforms are favorable marketing avenues.

Part of the challenges that will emerge is that social media presence will either weaken or replace the current traditional marketing approaches the company uses. Most managers and employees will challenge the move, citing that social media presence will be costly when added to traditional marketing approaches. While social media presence will make the company incur some costs, it will not replace traditional marketing approaches but strengthen them since both approaches will heavily increase brand awareness and reach out to several customers.

The other challenge that will emerge is that having a social media presence at the company means hiring more employees to manage the social media platforms. Social media accounts require constant updating, content sharing, and engaging with customers, among other activities. Having a social media presence will not make the company employ new employees, but the current employees should only receive additional training on social media use, and the projected impact will be realized.

Today, social media and internet technology are the key influencers for most businesses. Social media presence allows companies to grow their awareness among diverse customers, deliver their services and products in big numbers, and remain competitive at low cost without using high technicality as with traditional marketing plans. In my current company, having a social media presence means promoting products and services to a large customer base, improving customer relationships, growing the brand, and reducing the current marketing costs.

 

Appel, G., Grewal, L., & Hadi, R. et al. (2020). The future of social media in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 48, 79-95 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00695-1

Soelaiman, L. & Ekawati, S. (2021). The Role of Social Media in enhancing business performance. Advances in Economics, Business and Management Research, 216(2), 400-404

Tazeen, F. & Mullick, N. (2023). The impact of Social Media Platforms' Facebook and Instagram' in influencing purchasing behaviour of green products. The Journal of Business Perspective. 097226292211339. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09722629221133960