Chapter 7 – Social Network
Twitter, Facebook, and Yelp are popular social networking sites that put a small business on the same footing with giant ventures by providing an affordable platform for selling their products and interacting with customers. Per the Experian Marketing Services, Facebook and Twitter are the most popular social networking sites with billions of viewers traversing these platforms every hour (Bidgoli, 2011). Several successful businesses, like Walmart, have managed to maintain an active social media presence that allows them to improve their bottom lines and improve their efficiency. Twitter, Facebook, and Yelp can be appropriately utilized by small businesses to accomplish similar results.
Twitter allows businesses to achieve real-time networking with customers from anywhere in the world. Small businesses can use this platform to gather customer feedbacks concerning their products and ask for product endorsements. The reason for this is Twitter plays a very essential role in networking ideas and topics. Moreover, it limits tweets to only 140 characters. Facebook can be used to reach more people since it allows for likes and sharing with friends. Small businesses can use this platform to advertise new products and build customer loyalty by encouraging customers to share on top of liking. Lastly, Yelp is more suited for brick-and-mortar businesses. Small businesses can use this platform to reach customers who are ready to buy. The final stage for customers that want to make purchases is looking for reviews concerning specific products. Yelp offers such a platform. Small business can increase their sales turnover by claiming a location spot on Yelp. Secondly, Yelp allows customers to order products directly. Small businesses can benefit from these services as it reduces their costs of sales and marketing tremendously. Businesses only part with a small commission while the platform undertakes credit card processing for them.
Reference
Bidgoli, H. (2011). MIS 2. 2nd ed. Cengage Learning.