Contents

Page
1. Assess the management, organization, and technology issues for using social media to
engage with customers...............................................................................................................2
Management..............................................................................................................................2
Organization..............................................................................................................................2
Technology................................................................................................................................2
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using social media for advertising, brand
building, market research, and customer service?.....................................................................3
Advertising...............................................................................................................................3
Advantages...............................................................................................................................3
Disadvantages..........................................................................................................................3
Brand building.........................................................................................................................3
Advantage................................................................................................................................3
Disadvantages..........................................................................................................................4
Market Research......................................................................................................................4
Advantages...............................................................................................................................4
Disadvantages..........................................................................................................................4
Customer service......................................................................................................................4
Advantage................................................................................................................................4
Disadvantage...........................................................................................................................4
3. Give some examples of management decisions that were facilitated by using social media to
interact with customers..............................................................................................................5
4. Should all companies use Facebook and Twitter for customer service and advertising? Why
or why not? What kinds of companies are best suited to use these platforms?.........................5
1. Assess the management, organization, and technology issues for using social media to
engage with customers.
A. Management
Currently almost everyone uses social media in one way or the other. Most of the people
used Facebook and twitter to keep touch with friend and to let them learn and know what
there are doing. This concept comes out as an opportunity to most business entities because
of the simplicity in marketing of products. Social media like Facebook and Twitter have
transformed the way some businesses think about advertising. Most business have adopted
the concept of online marketing as it amounts to specific customer targeting hence more sales
compared to other forms of marketing. For these reasons, several decisions made by
managing bodies always tend to incorporate the ideology of the use of social media in
marketing.

B. Organization
Organizations use social media for their promotions and need to choose the suitable channel
that must well uniform with the company products and service. The security problem by
using the social networking. The company confidential information might expose to
competitors.
Facebook, Twitter, and other social media have become the major tools they can access with
their customers, amplifying product messages, discovering trends and influences,
building brand awareness, and taking action on customer request and recommendations.
Companies can use Facebook and Twitter to access a variety of businesses, ads, and services
without spending significant cost.

C. Technology
Facebook have feature the ability to like a brand, send a virtual gift, answer a pool question,
and instantly stream information to your news feed. Twitter has developed many new
offering like promoted tweets and promoted trend. These features give advertisers the ability
to have their tweets displayed more prominently when twitter users search keyword.
Therefore, use of technological advancement of social media leads to high efficiency in
dealing with customers.
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using social media for advertising, brand
building, market research, and customer service?

A. Advertising

Advantages
 The advantage of advertising in social media is decreased cost and increase revenue. By
using social media for advertising and promotion activities is cheaper than traditional
marketing method because the majority of social media web sites are free to access,
create a profile and post information. It helps the company save the cost to do promotion
because it was free for display ads in social media.
 The using of social media is more efficiency because the company can update the
information at any time.
 Social media also makes the information reach more people with a short period of time
since one easily spread the post to other people in its network
Disadvantages
 Updating the social media, accounts take time and effort. A senior person with
knowledge about the company and products should handle social media presence, and the
cost in time means the media is not completely free. The information is only visible for a
short time before newer posts replace it.
 One can hack the account and interfere with the information; this damage will reach more
people within a short period hence difficulty in correcting an error.
 Social media only reach to people with the accounts leaving out other who are also
potential customer
B. Brand building
Advantage
 Social media can increase the customer loyalty. The social media enable the company
provides real time data in Facebook wall. The company brand will be famous when the
customers saw a lot of LIKE on the brand
 Considering the size of the potential market on social media channels like Facebook and
Twitter, it is an obvious brand opportunity. Brand building was the main reason for
businesses to join social media that is why brand building is still a key part of the plan.
  For example, Levi’s was one of the first national brands to use Facebook and twitter to
allow customer to socialize and share their purchases with friend. The Levi’s Facebook
page have 500,000 ‘like’ message posted by friends sharing their favorite jeans.
Disadvantages
 The company cannot control the customer to leave negative comment or post in social
media. If the management team unable to overcome this complaint, it will damage the
company image. When potential customer saw the post, they might lose the interest to
buy the products. Once brand image can be damage irreversibly since every mistake
made on the social media is directly taken to be from the owner. Therefore, the company
must efficiently to respond on negative responses but it takes more time.
 It is also time consuming since one has to be online most of the time to get results of their
nature of their brands.
C. Market Research
Advantages
 Facebook is one of the popular platform that provided information about the people and it
make the process of market research become more easy and fast.
Disadvantages
 Social media majorly present unstructured data and feedback that sometimes cannot be
used as a tool in a market research
D. Customer service
Advantage
 Social media enable direct engagement with the customers hence making business more
interactive and make it easy to meet customer’s specific want.
 The company through social media can identify the target market based on age, sex,
geography and education. This is because the user of social media will full up their
personal information, it will let the company more understanding about the audience
characteristic and interest
Disadvantage
 Failing to respond appropriately to the customers concerns may damage the status of the
business 
3. Give some examples of management decisions that were facilitated by using social media to
interact with customers.
Social media in advertising and branding since many companies are using for advertisements
that benefit from on the social media features of Facebook and Twitter to achieve greater
visibility. Best Buy uses Twitter and Faceook fun page to bring its customers back to its own
website to shop online. Best Buy uses social media advertisement and collect information to
gauge the success of promotions. Best Buy also uses a dedicated team of Twitter responders,
called the “Twelp Force,” to answer user questions and respond to complaints. Best Buy uses
its central analytical platform to analyze unstructured data and make decisions. Therefore,
Best Buy can know better what their customers want and make product-related decisions.

Wrigleyville poses marketing advertisement for its small business knows which customers
respond to its promotions, how much they spent and what they purchased. It can measure
conversion rates, the value of keyword buys and the ultimate return on advertising
campaigns. It knows exactly where and how to spend its advertising dollars most effectively.

4. Should all companies use Facebook and Twitter for customer service and advertising? Why
or why not? What kinds of companies are best suited to use these platforms?

Not all companies should be use Facebook and Twitter for customer service and advertising.
Because the online environment creates not only opportunities, but also complications and
challenges for the social media marketing process. The transparency of the web makes online
information available to all audiences, and reinforces the need for consistency in the
planning, design, implementation and control of online customer service and advertising.
There some disadvantages need to be considered on social media marketing, which are time
intensive, trademark and Copyright Issues, trust privacy and security Issues and negative
feedbacks.

The kinds of companies that best suited to use social media platform are sell technology
products company, company that need sharing idea, providing customer support, fashion
industries, and entertainment industries are needed Facebook and Twitter.
 Starter companies that newly getting in the market would do great with social media to get
their names and faces out there. Social media platform is cheaper than traditional marketing
and advertising methods.

Reference

1. Rubathee N. and Rashad Y. (2013), Social Media Marketing: advantages and

Disadvantages, Center of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) Of Help College
of Arts and Technology, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2. Celine A. (2012), Social Media Marketing benefits for businesses: Why and how should
every business create and develop its Social Media Sites?
3. Carl E. Jefferson III & Shannon T. (2012), Social Media in Business: How Social Media
Can Help Small Businesses and Non-Profit Organizations
4. Tomi J. (2016), Branding in Social Media and the Impact of Social Media on Brand
Image, School of Business and Culture International Business
5. Prof. C.M. van der Bank, Marjoné van der B. (2015), The impact of social media:
advantages or disadvantages, African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure Vol. 4