By 2009, social media services, such as Facebook and Twitter, had become a popular marketing tool for small businesses. In fact, almost 25 percent of firms with fewer than 100 employees were using social media for marketing purposes. This was more than double the percentage of the prior year. Many of these firms cite the ease of use and low cost of these social media as the main reason for using them for reaching out to and communicating with potential and existing customers. How can the ability to communicate with customers via social media enhance channel management? Discuss.
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Answer:
Explanation:The broad using social media such as Facebook, Twitter nowadays enable its users to easily communicate and share information with each other on the world scale. In the business context, it can’t be denied that social media has the huge effect on the marketing activities. This essay will discuss how the use of such those platforms to communicate with customers can enhance marketing channel management.
On the one hand, social media is the great place to gather market information. It helps manufacturers directly learn about customer’s products and services requirement which is valuable for product planning, pricing and developing the marketing strategy. Besides that, manufacturers can also indirectly learn such that information via the conversation between wholesalers/retailers and customers by listening to social buzz. Moreover, with the gained information, firms can analyze and understand the target market’s demands, their favorite channel choices, their feedbacks/complaints with the process of purchasing or using products/services so that firms can effectively adjust the distribution strategy in the way that products/services can efficiently reach the prospects. In other words, social media enhance the information flow between all parties participating in the distribution, contribute to the link that ties channel members together.
On the other hand, firms can use social media to facilitate the channels. They inform consumers about sales, new arrivals, exclusive promotion. People then talk about your brand, products, advertising campaign and help information quickly spread out on the social network. Consumers after that can connect with their favorite retailers to stay informed or to purchase the products/services. Some firms can also use social media to support their online website become the mainstream marketing channels, especially in the news industry.
In addition, manufacturers can easily contact with the new customer (B2B) and vice versa, thanks to the ease of communicating with each other on social media.
In conclusion, social media provide the great chance for firms to interact with customers and managers need to take advantage if they don’t want to stand behind. this is information from sites that i can find