Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Social Networks in Business

The content shaped by the Social Media encompasses a fresh-produced source of the information, which is available to suit consumer thus creating a platform for product marketing. Example of social media sites, which have greatly contributed to product marketing, includes Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Digg, Google+, Digg, and LinkedIn among other sites. “The use of these social media platform in Marketing as a common trend has both associated merits and demerits. ” (Hill, Moran, 2011) Project Objective To identify and critically examine the advantages and disadvantages of network in business Project Scope The project will include an examination of the advantages and disadvantages of using social media network in business activities. The effects of the most commonly used sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google will be analyzed.

Other equally significant sites in social media marketing include Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google. These sites vary in structure, but they all provide a platform for firms and businesses to interact with the target groups. Apart from these sites, Stelzner (2014), and Atwong (2015), provides several channels falling under social networks with different merits and opportunities concerning marketing. Co-operative projects which include format able sources of data and wikis are a source of information to consumer population. Blogs, for instance, are highly applied in social media sites as a form of marketing. Additionally, people are more considerate to information provided online, and they engage in sharing information such that it reaches many people. Social media sites have over time rose to be the most common internet destinations.

Targeted market advantage is one benefit of social media. This refers to marketing that directly aims at consumers based on their subscriptions. These advertisements relay specific information which the customer requires. Additionally, promotion of a product, brand or service is capable of implicating its privacy, data security and trust issues. Negative feedback occurs as a challenge to businesses. In social media, consumers play the role of advertisers. The consumers can thus create either negative pressure on the company's merchandises and services offered to the customers. The evaluations, tags, and images on the product created by the consumers are important for the customers who are making purchase choices online. How does the use of social media influence businesses negatively? Research Design and Methodology A descriptive approach will be applied in integrating the requirements of the project.

The project will be carried out through a survey. The survey will include identification and classification of different business types to ease the process of enterprises identification. The methodology of this project is to use both qualitative and quantitative research analysis to determine the effect of social media in business enterprises. Qualitative research Random sampling will be used to determine the samples, but stratification will be applied and based on the type of venture. The questionnaire and the interview will be conducted to determine the employees’ acuity of social media marketing. This model will be impossible to encompass all aspects and changes occurring in different companies, and hence validity will be done through comparison of responses in similar companies. Additionally, employees will be requested to provide factual information based on trends and not personal ideas.

These two employees act as the representatives of the company. The data will be analyzed in groups of ten companies to determine the validity of the results. Again, the information on interviewing is based on a personal opinion, and at times this may lack factual support. This may result in aspects of unreliability (Stelzner, 2014) The project also encompasses various social media sites which may not have the same impact on the different companies. Some sites may be unreliable in some enterprises and hence provide a notion of negative influence. Bias is also a challenge in this project. Many employees consider their time very productive to waste it on interviews and questionnaires. A social media practicum: An action-learning approach to social media marketing and analytics.

Social networking cites which are commonly referred to as social media allows users to post, tag, blog, chat and other terms associated with social media activities, and in doing this, they create data that can be used by businesses in their strategies. Business can also create virtual representations of themselves in these sites to promote themselves and influence clients in all the stages of making a purchase decision. Social networks offer numerous opportunities for business everywhere to improve their marketing, communication and research strategy, however, there are some disadvantages that come with it these networking sites. Project Objective The objective of this project is to show the disadvantages and advantages that are associated with the use of social networks in a business.

The internet is a vital component of the society we live in today, and communication usually occurs online through social networks known as social media sites. Users can comment on the content of other users and can endorse it through liking, retweeting or quoting the information. The manner in which this is done varies from site to site, but the concept is quite similar. Social media’s marketing and research features Marketing through social media can take different forms and is often modeled after the Facebook model where the business replaces the human friend, group or page concept on the site. When users interact with the brand, they advertise it to the network of friends that they have on the platform.

The more a product is interacted with, the more popular it becomes (Vahl et. A large percentage of social media sites require nothing to access except internet access and a computer or a smartphone. This saves many businesses expenses as they reduce the money that they could have used in traditional marketing mechanisms which made it hard for small business to compete with big businesses. Second, social media increases social interaction within and outside the business. Organizations cannot survive in competitive environments without outsourcing. Online social networks such as LinkedIn make it easier for businesses to accomplish this task. This also includes online reviews in the social networks which if negative, can affect the sale of the product. The loss of trust in the companies is yet another disadvantage.

Companies often compromise the privacy of their clients when they carry out research on the social media sites. This diminishes the trust that people have in these companies. The last disadvantage that online social networks bring is the loss of jobs. This is because the perception that many social media companies spy on their users through their background running software that may be recording audio and doing other malicious activities has been termed as conspiracy for a very long time. Only after the Cambridge analytical scandal has such ideas received wide coverage. Another literature problem was that there was little information how marketing is achieved in ‘private’ platforms such as Snapchat. There is also speculation on how advertisement through the online social networks will change the advertisement scene.

These gaps of information offer opportunities for further investigation. The main step is identified social networks that are used by business and use them as case studies. In order to make the sources reliable, citations will be used where needed and the sources will be within the span of less than five years back as the older the source, the less credible it is due to the ever-changing demographics of the social space. - Quantitative research The quantitative research done is the use of data that relates to hoe many social media users are present in the social media sites. Another research instrument is the use of data of the age group that heavily influenced by the online social networks. The validity of data used can be directing by seeing how recent the source is.