Due to the world pandemic and technological advancements, business structures are experiencing transformations and following new trends. The most visible changes are related to e-commerce and digital marketing. Now business entities spend more on social media to advertise their products and services. It is easier to attract more customers by using social media platforms, as they are all online and interconnected. When some products become popular on social media platforms, people will buy them immediately.
Leading social media platforms have billions of followers who are potential clients of businesses. The platforms are also helpful to examine customers and their needs. Estimations demonstrate that spending on social media advertisement will increase by 15% in 2021, growing the total spent on social media advertisement to $105 billion, which is twice as big as the figure in 2017 (Uzialko, 2021). People are using the Internet and scrolling social media platforms daily, thus, experiencing digital marketing techniques. They read reviews on goods and services provided by social media influencers and have expectations of what they are going to purchase. By implementing effective social media marketing methods, it is easy to manipulate customer choices and behavior.
Customers use social media to generate content that influences other customers through positive or negative reviews, mobilizing other actions towards brands and their products and services. Australian small and medium-sized business owners were interviewed to investigate the role of social media played in their customer relationship management and customer engagement behaviors (Guha et al., 2017). The study shows that effective use of social media platform that includes collecting and processing social data can be beneficial to owners of small and medium-sized business entities. Owners of business structures will have an image of their potential customers and can predict future trends in customers’ behavior.
Apart from digital marketing, social media platforms are also helpful in business management. When a business entity creates its social media profile, it organizes and manages operational functions and creates its brand. Customers and business partners have the ability to see how the business functions and approaches work experience with clients. Moreover, the goals and vision of the business structure can be seen and analyzed through social media. A systematic study of the effects of social media on business processes has found improvements in the business structure’s operational and financial parts (Nascimento et al., 2017). This study shows that using social media platforms is beneficial for businesses.
The visual aid below illustrates Internet users, mobile users, social media users, and the whole population before 2019. It is seen that the majority of the world population uses social media, suggesting the necessity to have social media profile for a business structure. In the nearest future, social media profiles will be a primary application to compete with other business entities and sustain the business itself.
Overall, the recent trends of digital marketing demonstrate a need to transform traditional businesses into e-commerce and digital marketing. People are using social media platforms to entertain themselves and chat with friends and share experiences about particular products and services, thus influencing the success of business entities. Social media influencers may manipulate their followers and convince them to buy certain products. Moreover, the platforms provide an additional tool for a business structure to promote its brand, vision, and goals. Along with customers, using social media also attracts new partners and investments, facilitating the business.
References
Allen, R. Social media marketing trends 2020. Smart Insights. Web.
Guha, S., Harrigan, P., & Soutar, G. (2018). Linking social media to customer relationship management (CRM): A qualitative study on SMEs. Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship, 30(3), 193-214.
Nascimento, A. M., & Da Silveira, D. S. (2017). A systematic mapping study on using social media for business process improvement. Computers in Human Behavior, 73, 670-675.
Uzialko, A. 12 Small Business Trends and Predictions for 2021. Business News Daily. Web.