Social media has significantly impacted businesses by allowing them to reach more potential customers economically through platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. It gives businesses a way to promote their products, gain user feedback, and target relevant customers through monitoring social media conversations and trends. Going forward, social media is expected to replace more traditional marketing methods and become even more integral to business operations, from recruitment to customer service to brand positioning.

1. MRK 2100
Point of View
Impact of Social Media on Business
Tyler Sledge

2. Point of View
In Unit #1, we discussed the impact of social media on business. In Unit #2,
we discussed market segmentation, targeting, positioning, and global
marketing.
This blend of marketing topics is the basis of this point of view slideshow.
• An interesting topic for me while studying this unit has been the impact of
social media on business.
• Social media has changed the dynamics of how businesses reach
customers

3. How businesses reach customers
• Social media extends the reach of the business to a larger target
market:
• social media is a way to inform the public of products and services
provided by a company quicker and over a greater distance than ever
before
• many people use social media on a daily basis to gather information
• Companies gain more prospects in a shorter amount of time

4. Using social media to reach customers
One of the reasons why businesses have become very interested in
using social media to reach customers is the ability to control
marketing costs while reaching exponentially higher numbers of
potential customers economically.
• Marketing costs – known/controlled using social media
• Economically project company awareness across vast distances for less expense
• This allows users from other cities, states or countries to shop for goods outside of their local
vicinity.
• Customer/Buyer conversions can be multiplied using known and controlled costs.

5. Beyond SEO - > SEM
• A web presence with web traffic to the site increases awareness of a business and its products.
• SEO optimizes web pages to maximize search result position or ad rank
• Search Engine Marketing goes beyond SEO
• Searches for companies or products may result in ads appearing from competing businesses; for example, a search
for “Oakley sunglasses” may result in ads on the search engine results from Ray-Ban or Maui Jim
• The consumer might follow a company on social media and promote a product to their
connections or followers. Impressions show up in app feeds and search results.
• Studies show that:
• Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the US
• 25% of search results for the world’s top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content and
• 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
When businesses decide to go beyond traditional means of generating awareness, they often see
tremendous payback. Social media delivers measurable results in sales, leads, and branding.

6. Social Media
• Impact of Social Media on Business
• Through the use of social media, products and the companies that make or sell
them are introduced as secondary information to the problem being solved.
Consumers will be more inclined to buy a product if they have seen it promoted
on one of the major social media platforms ( i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and
even LinkedIn). They want to hear about user experiences with the product in
order to validate that it can do the job it is supposed to do. Product and company
perceptions are formed through social media exposure to a great extent; real-life
experience is considered more reliable information than what a company claims
about itself.
• This day and age, many people will first search on social media and the Internet
about an idea or a problem they need to solve before getting a referral from a
friend in person or shopping for a product. If these search results point to a
specific product, they can greatly influence buying behaviors.

7. Social Media’s impact on Business
• Impact of Social Media on Business
• Social media makes purchasing and experience with a product and a company a two-way conversation. A
customer may opt-into communications from the company and receive emails from them.
• A customer may “follow” a business, “like” a business, “connect” with a business – all on social media
channels and platforms. In this way, consumers are connected with the business and its products and other
consumers. The business monitors activity on the channels and platforms and uses the information to adjust
its communications and more directly target potential buyers and influencers.
• For example, if consumers are looking for clothing from a certain brand or of a certain style, the social media
people in the marketing department will notice the trends, and from there they may generate ads or
messages for similar products that cater to that type of demographic. The company might also send out a
questionnaire regarding a recent purchase; from there the company may entice the consumer with coupons
or special discounts to come again and buy more products. User experiences with products often lead
buyers to brands and products, often leading to more business for the companies mentioned by the users.
Consumers will look up user experiences with products and testimonials before they go out and purchase
the product; they want to see how well it performs for others before they give it a try for themselves.
People care more about how the “social graph” ranks products and services than how Google ranks them.
78% of consumers trust peer recommendations, only 14% trust advertisements. Only 18% of traditional TV
campaigns generate a positive ROI. It has been observed that 90% of people skip ads via TiVo/DVR.

8. Social Media’s impact on Business (cont.)
• Impact of Social Media on Business
• It has been proven that social media isn’t a fad, it’s now more of a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. Successful
companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like Mad Men: Listening first, selling second.
• The ROI of social media in a business will still exist in 5 years, unlike many other traditional methods of marketing. I feel like social
media is just ramping up; some of those in the older generation don’t necessarily appreciate how much of an impact social media
has on business.
• It can make a local mom and pop Bed & Breakfast a global phenomenon in no time - that is how powerful social media has
become. The number of years to reach 50 million consumers according to trends are: Radio – 38 years, TV – 38 years, Internet – 4
years. There are ~60 million status updates happening on Facebook daily. We no longer search for the news, it finds us. We won’t
go out searching for services and products, they come to us via social media.
• A lot of services already offer mobile apps to request their services instantly, from fast-food delivery to tow-truck services, they all
use social media to earn your business.
• Social Media has a tremendous effect on the future, I am certain that it will replace billboards and other standard marketing
measures. I have already seen so many digital billboards and social media promotions in the last few years. There is another way
that social media has had an impact on business. It has been observed that 80% of companies use social media for recruitment
and 95% of companies use LinkedIn for recruiting.

9. The Future of Social Media
• Today, more and more companies are using social media as a formal
hiring method.
• Social media will be even more common in business in the future, I
have seen businesses do some pretty amazing things with social
media so far, and it will be even better in the future.
• Job seekers no longer have to worry about paper copies of resumes
being lost or misplaced by hiring companies.
• Rather than sending a resume via post office, many companies will
take digital forms of potential employees resume’s, whether it be a
LinkedIn, Indeed or other form of profile they might have available.

10. Market segmentation targeting and
positioning
• Tools such as Hootsuite and HubSpot can be used to monitor activity
and campaign effectiveness.
• The following diagram illustrates how social media platforms and
channels can be used to target customers and position companies.
(See next slide)