Impacts of Social Media: Advantages and Disadvantages

The Impact of Social Media on Politics

A new study from Pew Research claims that about one in five U.S. adults gets their political news primarily through social media. The study also finds that those who do get their political news primarily through social media tend to be less well-informed and more likely to be exposed to unproven claims that people who get their news from traditional sources.

In comparison to other media, the influence of social media in political campaigns has increased tremendously. Social networks play an increasingly important role in electoral politics — first in the ultimately unsuccessful candidacy of Howard Dean in 2003, then in the election of the first African-American president in 2008, and again in the Twitter-driven campaign of Donald Trump.

The New York Times reports that “The election of Donald J. Trump is perhaps the starkest illustration yet that across the planet, social networks are helping to fundamentally rewire human society.” Because social media allows people to communicate more freely, they are helping to create surprisingly influential social organizations among once-marginalized groups.

The Impact of Social Media on Commerce

The rise of social media means it’s unusual to find an organization that does not reach its customers and prospects through one social media platform or another. Companies see the importance of using social media to connect with customers and build revenue.

Businesses have realized they can use social media to generate insights, stimulate demand, and create targeted product offerings. These functions are important in traditional brick-and-motor businesses and, obviously, in the world of e-commerce.

Many studies suggest implementing social networks within the workplace can strengthen knowledge sharing. The result is to improve project management activities and enable the spread of specialized knowledge. Fully implementing social technologies in the workplace removes boundaries, eliminates silos, and can raise interaction and help create more highly skilled and knowledgeable workers.

The flipside: A low number of social ‘shares’ can lead to negative social proof and destroy business credibility

Interestingly, although social sharing has become the norm rather than the exception in business, some companies, after experiencing first-hand some adverse effects of social media, have decided to go against the grain and remove the social sharing buttons from their websites.

A case study of Taloon.com, an e-commerce retailer from Finland, found that conversions rose by 11.9% when they removed share buttons from their product pages.

Social media creates word of mouth
Social media does, in fact, help to get the word out about your business. With the arrival of interactive and social media, the patterns, role, and impact of word of mouth have evolved. Due to which new online communities are shaped.

Such changes affected the ways businesses can leverage the power of word of mouth for marketing purposes and, vice versa, the impact of word of mouth on businesses. Research shows that 72% of people see online reviews in the same light as personal recommendations made by friends and family.

Great word of mouth marketing example – Threadless
Threadless is an online community of T-shirt designers and a platform where they assembled to submit and vote on T-shirt designs. The designers were paid 20% in royalties, and either Threadless gift cards or cash.

Social customer service is the new marketing

Providing stellar customer service is likely already a top priority for every business. But along with the two-way communication that social media provides, it also offers a unique opportunity to step up your customer service game and provide instant gratification to your target audience.

WhatsApp, for example, is the most popular channel for customer service on a global front. The numbers say there are more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, sharing more than 60 billion messages every day, a huge amount of on-platform activity.

WhatsApp Business app, launched by Whatsapp enables business users to “interact with customers easily by using tools to automate, sort, and quickly respond to the messages”. 

Get in touch with us for a free online business analysis

Learn more: https://www.simplilearn.com/real-impact-social-media-article#top_7_impacts_of_social_media

Learn more: https://www.revechat.com/blog/top-9-ways-social-media-impacts-businesses/