Impact of Social Media on Businesses

BY: Ghulam Qadir
The word social refers to interacting with other people by sharing information with them and receiving information from them and the term media is the plural form of medium, which describes any channel of communication, like internet,TV, radio newspapers are examples of more traditional forms of media, by joining these two term we can define the Social Media as,
Social media are web-based communication tools that enable people to interact with each other by both sharing and getting information. Social media has been evolving since 1990s and there are numerous forms of social media, the well known and most used are Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, and Linkdin.
According to current statistics about 2.8 Billion out of 7.7 Billion of total world population is using social media which is 36 percent of total population, and it’s increasing day by day, if we see in the Pakistan, 20 percent of total population is using social media among them 83 percent Face book users, 6 percent Twitter, 4 percent you tube and 3 percent instagram and others.
Social media can be a game changer for your business, simply it not only offer ample opportunities, but also present significant challenges for you. When used effectively, it has profound effects on your business helping you reach a high number of potential customers with its low cost and large audiences. It reduces your marketing cost, improve your sales lead by greater customers engagement, opportunity to access to international markets, offers opportunity for customer feedback, improve your networking with customers and other businesses and many more. On the other side it’s not entirely risk-free having some potential threats for employers. It creates tough competition, time consuming, Information overload, fake news, privacy concerns, chances of fraud, malware attacks and hacks, absence of credibility and greater exposure online could bring a negative publicity for your business.
Ultimately, the social media environment is very sensitive and it has powerful effects on your business, it can take your business to new heights or drag down to bottom but just like any other technology, it can be used for good or evil, as it depends on its usage.
A successful business cannot lay in fear of risk but to embrace the rewards it can achieve whatever the risk, having a social media strategy and preparing your policy and procedures can help you manage the risks. Dedicate some time to learn about how social media works, listen to your customers carefully, set a goal and come up with a rational social media strategy and act accordingly with very careful and vigilantly approach otherwise you may be victim of the said social media giant.
A Financial Aspirant based in Islamabad.