Social media platforms and their societal impact

Social Media

In today's world, technology is continuing to dramatically evolve how we live our lives. New innovations in technology have changed how we see the world, interact within it, and even communicate with one another. One of the latest trends in the modern environment has been the explosion of social media, where online and viral communications and networking are forever changing how we relate to one another.

For small business, social media represents both an opportunity and a threat. Small businesses today have an imperative to understand what social media is, how it affects them and what they can do about it. Kietzmann et al. (2011) outline the building blocks of social media. Social media consists of various platforms that consumers use to communicate with each other. There is a "diverse ecology" of social networking sites that help users to perform this function. Because this form of communication takes control of the message out of the hands of the company, it represents a risk to small business. Consumers can post something negative about the company on the Internet, and the audience can range from a few friends to an audience of millions. While the latter is a crisis for any business, small businesses can face strong adverse effects even with the former.

Kietzmann et al. (2011) outline the seven building blocks of social media. These are presence, sharing, conversations, identity, groups, relationships, and reputation. For a small business, understanding these distinct building blocks and how to leverage the company's social media presence around the building blocks is essential to success. Jonscher (2012) outlines the potential of social media for small and medium-sized businesses. Often, smaller businesses face marketing barriers because of the high cost of advertising. It is expensive to produce, and airtime can be costly as well. As a result, small businesses are at a strategic disadvantage to larger firms, because the lack economies of scale in their promotional capabilities.

What Jonscher (2012) argues is that social media can help to erase those boundaries. Many small businesses, however, do not feel that significant potential exists to use social media marketing tactics to close the promotional capabilities gap with large enterprises. She argues that small business owners need to become better-educated about what social media is, how it works, and why it is so appealing to consumers. By understanding the nature of social media's success, perhaps through the Kietzmann honeycomb framework, the problem of small company marketing disadvantage can be overcome by using social media.

Smith and Zook (2011) argue that companies must make social media a centerpiece of their marketing communications strategies. Because social media is so revolutionary with respect to its impact on communication, companies need not only to participate is social media but they have to. Large competitors will also be using social media, so there may not be much source of competitive advantage from having a social media presence, but small business owners can gain advantage from superior use of social media. As Jack Welch once pointed out, the ability to get things done faster than the competition is a source of competitive advantage. This highlights one advantage of social media for small businesses -- the decision makers are the ones receiving the feedback, so they can act on that feedback immediately.