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Running Head: SOCIAL MEDIA AND E-BUSINESS

SOCIAL MEDIA AND E-BUSINESS
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SOCIAL MEDIA AND E-BUSINESS

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SOCIAL MEDIA AND E-BUSINESS
Introduction
Social media has experienced tremendous growth over the past several years. In essence,
the number of social media users has increased and is predicted to increase over the coming
years. With the increased shift towards e-commerce, many business entities are making use of
the various social media platforms to promote their businesses in different ways. Therefore, it is
crucial to know that has emerged as a powerful business tool in the diverse dispositions related to
e-Business. Social media has led to an emergence of online consumer communities who are very
assertive when it comes to discovering, sharing and even distributing information concerning
products, services, and companies
Role of Social Media in E-business
Over the years, social media has not only managed to connect people across the world but
is now playing a decisive role in many businesses today. As people embrace a shift towards
online undertakings, so do business entities. Physical presence and commercial advertisements in
television and print media are no longer sufficient to guarantee business success in this digital
age. Therefore, businesses are engaging social media platforms such as MySpace and Facebook
to assist them in selling more products and services. It is imperative to know that application
developers are also pushing their way in creating new widgets for these platforms. Consequently,
the respective users are encouraged to spend more time on the Internet using these services, and
business entities are obtaining more incentives to utilize all the wide range of data available to
augment their marketing strategies and reach more customers. There is apparently more

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individual data stored on these online social networking site than ever before (Lam, Yeung &
Cheng, 2016).
Social media sites provide an affordable and convenient mode for different consumers to
stay connected with other members of the sites. The online social networking platforms also
enable users to easily control the content about them. With many people turning to social media
to facilitate their purchase decisions, social media is undoubtedly playing a critical role in the
evolution of consumer shopping on online platforms (Turban, Outland, King, Lee, Liang &
Turban, 2017).
Social Media as a Powerful Marketing Tool
Social media has become a tool that helps businesses to connect with their audiences
more easily. Social networks have gained a business following over time and business
organizations have seen it fit that they are well worth bearing in mind. It is certain that social
networks have come a long way and can be considered a vital marketplace for different
organizations.
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Social Media and Customer research
E-businesses can be able to identify in real-time what their customers expect, prefer and

want, what they care about, what they are up to the wave of conversations that are driving their
interests. Marketers, as well as advertisers, are always seeking for ways of understanding the
consumers better. In order for them to succeed, they need to gather the relevant information
about consumers. Shopping and social networking platforms are essential in gathering much of
such information about online users and it is now tremendously useful for organizations to track
and model consumer behavior. This helps in optimizing their product or service offerings to meet

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the target market as well as in delivering targeted and accurate messaging (Cavinder, Sear,
Valdez & White, 2017).
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Social Media and Customer services
Social media provides the aspect of immediacy that customers need so much. E-

businesses can respond to customer needs and inquiries more promptly and be able to recognize
and counter negative customer experiences. Social media enable consumers to find a greater
range of products that fit their needs (Barrett, Davidson, Prabhu & Vargo, 2015).
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Customer acquisition
The social profiles of e-businesses act as their storefronts. Through various social media

platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, MySpace among others, e-businesses
have an avenue to make critical information concerning their product and service offerings easily
available to customers. Owing to the fact that customers are utilizing social media profiles to
search for products and companies, e...