Leveraging Social Media for Business Growth

In the recent era of technological advancement, social media in business is slowly being appreciated by organizations globally. This is because of the fact that the internet is viewed as the new frontier for doing business. It provides a platform where organizations can get a wider audience and bypassing various difficulties like time, availability, accessibility and distance of reach. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and other social media play an essential role in how online users discover, research and share information about brands and new product business. An online survey reported that around 60 percent of consumers who research products online, learned about a specific retailer or brand through social networking sites. This paper discusses the impact of social media in business organizations by highlighting the competitive advantage on organizations’ engagement in social media. It aims to identify the factors why business prefers social media as marketing and communication tools over other available methods. An in-depth analysis of the advantages and disadvantages together with the risks of social media on business is further presented in the paper. Some success stories of organizations that used social media as part of their marketing campaign have been included here in this paper. This paper also attempts to figure out widely used social media applications in business. This research is qualitative in nature, which is done through literature review, observations, and interview forms mailed to business development managers.