The massive usage and popularity of social media has made many companies and enterprises use it as their strategy for integrating information and communication technologies. They use social media for image building or for marketing products. But more generally in order to reach an audience in ways that the audience wants to be reached.
About 30 percent of companies and enterprises use social media (social networks, blogs, content-sharing sites and wikis), with almost three out of four of these businesses using them to build their image and market their products. Social media has opened a way for mass viral marketing where anyone can engage in the conversation, increasing the exposure exponentially. This has made social media a place where businesses gather to increase their sales.
Social Media as a Paradigm Shift
As the internet grows larger and user-generated contents dominate the network, there has been a shift from the static web pages of the earlier websites towards web applications which draw on user data and relevant applications. Since then, numerous internet-based services, collaborative web applications and interactive websites have appeared. Users have been encouraged to subscribe to these services, share contents, add links, and become a part of the community.
Companies and enterprises have been supported in exchanging information, experiences and opinions in the form of dialogues over internet communication platforms. These in fact, has been part of a paradigm shift, as they have been able to reach an audience in ways that the audience wants to be reached.
Embracing the new generation of highly dynamic web applications also made people adopt new behaviors. They have integrated social media into the way they run their business and conduct communication and interaction using the new application.
With these new behaviors, it's now possible for customers to influence business decisions and assist companies in marketing their products to the masses.
Companies, Enterprises, and Social Media
Commercial beings has attached themselves in the importance of internet presence. Their websites that were once just company profile websites are increasingly offer functionalities such as online ordering, product catalogues and information, order tracking, product customization and links to popular social media.
In 2013, about 70 percent of these companies and enterprises employ at least 10 people for this commercial strategy. This is 2 percentage increase than the the previous year as adoption rates are slowing.
Furthermore, companies and enterprises are looking to enhance their internet presence by exploiting the possibilities that social media has to offer. The four most widely known categories of social media are: social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and others, corporate and microblogs such as Twitter and others, multimedia sharing websites such as YouTube, Flickr and Slideshare, and wiki-based tools.
Social networks were more popular than other types of social media. About 20 percent of companies and enterprises used social networks to connect to their customers by creating personal information profiles. Almost 50 percent of them has, or had an account and used some kind of social network strategy.
The use of blogs or microblogs and content-sharing websites is less popular but increasing in number. About 15 percent of companies and enterprises use this platform daily and post certain information about their products.
Multimedia content communities, give enterprises the opportunity to share media content with potential or current customers, thus enhancing their marketing capacity. They may release photos and videos or share presentations and documents over the internet that may be linked to blogs and other social networking services or websites.
Social media network that comes last is wiki-based sharing tools. Just about 5 percent of companies and enterprises use it in 2013. A wiki is a website that in principle allows multiple users to create and collaboratively edit interlinked web pages using an internet browser. Wiki-based communication platforms may be open to a global audience or may be restricted to a selected network or community of partners.
Using Social Media for Businesses
Social media usage is common for businesses to improve their current beings their own territory, influencing what is beyond by reach the outside world, connecting themselves to customers, business partners and other organizations. Social media is also used as a place for communication within them and for specific purposes such as to recruit employees.
Globally, the difference in the proportion of small and large companies and enterprises using social media for purposes relating to the outside world in 2013 was small. About 70 percent of small businesses used social media to build their image or market products, compared with 80 percent of large enterprises. There were also only small differences in the proportion using social media to obtain customers' opinions or answer questions (49 percent of small businesses, 57 percent of large ones), to involve customers in product developments (28 percent and 32 percent) and to collaborate with business partners (29 percent and 31 percent). While 53 percent of large enterprises used social media to recruit employees, only 26 percent of small businesses used them for this purpose. 42 percent of large businesses used social media internally, while only 28 percent of small ones did so.
Social media, with other technologies such as cloud computing, mobile access to the internet, enable businesses to grow and innovate. Growth remains a condition for business survival while innovation remains necessary for competitiveness.