What are the Real Impacts of Social Media?

What is the real impact of social media on commerce, professionals, business, society, and personal relationships?

Do you know that the consumer sector has grown faster than the internet itself? For example – since being publicly available, Facebook has 2.3 billion active users as of the Q1 of 2019.

Gone are those days where people use social media just for socializing. The active presence of social media has transformed communication technology significantly.

More than 90 of global brands are betting on social media for business promotion and brand awareness.

Above 60 million messages are shared through Whatsapp and Facebook messenger on a daily basis.

Surprised?

With such widespread usage of social media, it has become the most powerful business opportunity generator.

If you are planning to take your business to an online platform, it’s better you know the utility so that you can earn maximum ROI.

Since social media is a fast-evolving marketing route, plunging into it without any knowledge can burn a big hole in your pocket.

The presence of social media further shoots up with the advancement of mobile technology. People have become so much addicted to mobiles and social media apps on it. This results in an incredible marketing opportunity for business owners.

Social media apps keep on updating on a regular basis thereby incorporating new features for enhanced utility.

There are millions of people using social media platforms. Every social media platform has a different set of target audience.

Number of Social Media Users on Different Platforms

Facebook – 2.3 billion users

YouTube – 1.3 billion users

Instagram – 111 billion users

LinkedIn – 630 million users

Twitter – 321 million users

Pinterest – 291 million users

Reddit – 330 million users

Snapchat – 187 million users

MySpace – 50 million users

Periscope – 10 million users

Wechat – 1 billion users

Whatsapp – 1.5 billion users

Weibo – 600 million users

So, it’s an enormous user base as you could see. Have you ever wondered how social media holds an increasing presence in our lives?

• Best Time to Post on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest & Youtube

Let’s have a quick rundown –

1. Impact of Social Media on Commerce

74% of consumers purchase online goods relying on social media advertisements.

Social media platforms are really popular among marketers as they connect their existing and future customers through these platforms.

Brands are increasingly using social media platforms to connect with their audience. Thus the impact of social media on business is undeniable vast. Marketers are utilizing social media for brand building and increasing the overall higher revenue generation.

Consumers get in touch with the brands and their offers through social media. On the contrary, brands collect customer information for lead generation and remarketing purposes from the same platform. Therefore social media plays a vital role in e-commerce.

Social media has become a platform for sharing information and knowledge. This example has been broadly brought in effect to workspaces. Even the management also want to maximize social media usage in the workspace for reducing complication and disparity in terms of knowledge acquisition by the employees.

With the lesser volume of social shares business credibility takes to the south which is considered as negative social proof.

Social media business promotion is really common these days. However, there are companies which are not open to the social platforms considering the security aspect. For they remove the social media buttons from their existing websites.

A Finland based e-commerce site named Taloon.com has witnessed 11.9% surge in sales after they removed social media sharing buttons from their webpage.

Thus, social media has both positive and negative impacts on a business. Building trust through social media leads to higher conversion. Somehow if you lose the user trust a bit it takes a toll on your business greatly irrespective to your business reputation.

2. Social Media as a Boon for the Professionals

LinkedIn and Indeed both have become two pivotal professional networks. These platforms connect job seekers to trusted contacts. Also, using these platforms for knowledge broadens your network and creates more opportunity.

Social media influences the recruitment sector greatly. Now the sector operates differently with the emergence of social media.

It won’t be overstated if said that along with the resume social media account of candidate also a deciding fact in recruitment.

19% of the hiring managers go through a candidate’s social media profile before the final call. So, the profile indeed plays a crucial role.

According to recent research, 60% of employers keep their eyes on social media to get a clear perception of the interviewee. This is how social media act as an active medium for both the recruiters as well as job seekers.

When it comes to job search there is no match of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the platform where recruiters get easy access to job seekers through the job post. All you need to have an active profile on LinkedIn to get updated with the latest job openings.

3. How Professional Social Media Training can help

Candidates with social media knowledge have become ‘popular choice’ of the recruiters. Candidates can employ social media as a trump card to enhance their employability.

Social media plays a learning platform as well. Usage of social media has shot up over the past few years almost by 80%. An increasing number of people are using it as a learning platform.

More than half of the educators in the recruitment field will agree that social media has a huge role to play in boosting interaction based on knowledge sharing.

Thanks to social media platforms that distance education has growing popularity amongst the youth and the working professionals. Students are learning from Wiki, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and videos available on YouTube. Apart from these positive facades, social media gets negative marking on privacy concerns.

There are people who do exist complaining about privacy concerns. Yet, the wave is not that big enough to wobble such humongous following of social media. These platforms are still largely in use.

4. Impact of Social Media in Business

Having an active business profile on social media adds to the credibility of your business. If you still don’t have it, we are afraid, you can never give your business its desired reach and saleability.

• Best SMO Tools for your Business

Let’s focus on how social media can benefit your business:

1. Boosting Brand Awareness

More than half of the world is available on various social media platforms. Targeting a large group of the audience becomes a few clicks away with social business profiles.

Various reports suggest that more than 60% of people get to know about new brands on Instagram. You can understand how social media can amplify your business returns.

Social media platforms do monetize your business. From existing customers to the potential ones reach out to everyone with an active business profile.

2. Leave a Permanent Impression on Buyers’ Mind

People log in to their respective social media profiles most of the time in a day through mobile. This is the biggest opportunity to impress your potential target group.

Connect and interact with your potential consumers over these platforms. Lure them with attractive social media campaigns and covert the interaction into the purchase decision.

Whatever content you post, keep it relevant and informative. Try to provide a solution through your business approach. Your content should meet the requirements of your customers. That’s it!

Make your customers happy and satisfied after coming across your content. This is the tried and tested hack to establish a long-lasting brand image.

3. Personify your Brand

In most of the cases, people tend to connect and trust those brands which are popularly believed in providing solutions. Brands that play human cards happen to touch the market pulse sharp. People invest in brands that fulfill their expectations and return on their investment.

If you want people to invest in your brand, you need to essentially show the human side of your brand as well. And how would it suppose to happen? Introduce your brand on social media platforms. Interact with your potential customers. Give a reply to their questions and help them become an informed buyer.

Always remember customers might ask a series of questions before putting money on your brand. You have to handle it diligently.

For that, you need to have a thorough knowledge of the product you are selling. For instance:

Why would people choose your product?

How it’s different from the other competitive products available in the market?

What are the merits and demerits of your product?

What are your brand values? And so on…

In order to absorb a good conversion, you have to answer all these queries. Utilize social media platforms to showcase the human side of your brand.

4. Increasing your Website Traffic

Running low on website traffic? Take the help of social media to increase your website traffic. Social media posts and ads (free & paid) can be best used to drive traffic to your website.

If you have good blogs (published) on your website, share those links on social media accounts. This is the best way to let people know you have some good content available on your website thereby generating traffic of your site.

This is how you can actually mobilize new people to look at your website and know about the product/service(s) you are offering. Don’t forget to write/link your website whenever you are publishing any content on social media.

5. Amplify sales

Taking your product/service to social media can add to sales figures magically. It’s true that social media business accounts drive sales provided your product is capable and impactful. Social media posts are the best means to seize a new user base.

Choose the right platform to reach out to your niche.  Social media profiles play a role in conversing increasing sales.

5. Role of Social Media in Building a Social and Personal Relationships

As we have seen that social media has become an active part of our daily lives. It has significantly changed how we socialize and bond in our surroundings.

Despite all those benefits and positive facades, usage of social media can result in undesired, opposite effects too. For obvious reasons where we can’t overlook the booming technical advancement; one parallel note, the abusive side of social media is exceedingly fettering psychological and emotional wellbeing.

Research shows that excessive usage of social media can indulge in diseases like sleeplessness, depression, anxiety disorder, FOMO, and OCD. Web life has triggered the self-obsession of people densely.

A little consciousness is therefore advised so that a balance can be maintained between positive application and potential threat. With good use, you can easily build networking and earn rewards.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly social media has become the most powerful marketing platform for brands. On an ending note, we can say that the whole thing depends on how you want to utilize social media.