Effects of Social Media and ROI for Small Businesses Research Paper

Effects of Social Media and ROI for Small Businesses - Research Paper Example So if there were one term that could be used to grasp the ubiquity of social media, it would be ‘instant dissemination’. Going by this versatility of social media, the way people research, access and purchase products and services around the world is fast changing (Cass, 2007, p. 11). Hence, as expected and would be deemed to be commonsensical, businesses, whether big or small simply could not expect to thrive and survive competition if they do not customize their approach in consonance with these pressing consumer trends and practices (Cass, 2007, p. 9). Especially in case of the small businesses, which have fewer resources to spend on infrastructure, consumer education, communication, and marketing and after sales service, social media offers a range of salubrious opportunities and possibilities. However, it does need to be mentioned that the positive advantages facilitated by the social media to the small businesses are qualified and subject to an array of initiatives , choices, precautions, objectives and constraints. Before delving on the effect of small media on small businesses, it is imperative to gauge the extent to which the small businesses are turning to social media for accomplishing a range of objectives and activities. As per a report published in Forbes, nearly 54 percent of the small and midsize businesses do actively ascribe to social media to advance their scope and this figure is expected to soar every year (Diana, 2010). What is even more impressive is that the engagement of small businesses with social media is not lethargic and intermittent, but rather happens to be really prompt and regular, considering the fact that nearly 35 percent of them have been found to be posting regular inputs and updates on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn (Diana, 2010). Indeed, social media must be doing something good to these small businesses as 60 percent of them have acknowledged that social media has positive ly and propitiously influenced their business prospects (Diana, 2010). In a British study focusing on 269 small and midsize businesses, 46 percent accounted that an active engagement with social media has enhanced their brand awareness and 36 percent agreed that they have been able to grab much new business owing to social media (Diana, 2010). However, one simply cannot trust the positivity of social media for small businesses by merely considering only those who succeeded. As could be considered to be a commonsensical premise, there must be many small businesses which must have failed to considerably benefit from social media owing to a variety of mistakes and flaws in their strategy. As already mentioned that small businesses are marked by limited resources, they could only benefit from social media if they could use it to leverage business in a cost effective way and assure a favorable return on investment. In that context it would be pragmatic to delve on the varied benefits tha t social media offers to small businesses and how the small businesses could glean these benefits while assuring an optimal return on investment. One salient advantage of social media to the small businesses is that it could be easily used to reach a diverse and widely scattered customer base as social media as compared to the conventional media has a larger reach and a higher sharing potential (Coleman, 2012). One direct and immediate advantage of soci