Marketing in a Contemporary Context
Introduction
E-commerce, web marketing and global financing are amongst the most fundamental aspects of all business strategies. Web marketing via social networks such as Facebook appears to be a powerful catalyst that aims at improving the productivity of most businesses. These new technologies directly influence the enhancement of business power and market competitive edge, thus assuring future progress of numerous enterprises. Most likely, social media as a marketing tool are likely to grow immensely because many entrepreneurs embrace marketing using such innovative techniques. In fact, the rapidly developing and advancing technology has greatly changed lifestyles in many societies. The performance of almost every activity in our societies depends on technology or includes certain inputs of technology, especially those based on computers. Communication that defines the subjects and foundation of almost every activity carried in our societies experiences similar changes nowadays. Facebook, for example, acts as a means of communication used by numerous business persons to deliver information regarding their products to the broader market. Communication techniques have shifted from manual forms, which entailed letters and telephone lines connected to immobile communication devices, to a digital mode, which is characterized by computers and smartphones connected to high-tech wireless networks. The digital mode of communication has facilitated creation and development of websites and software programs that have improved and simplified the ways people communicate.
Social Media and how Entrepreneurs Employ it in Marketing
Social networking has taken steps to enhance the manner and speed of communication within various societies. To effectively communicate through social networks, one requires special skills that include reading, writing and interpreting the abbreviations used in such communicating. Due to special set abbreviations, social networking simplifies the ways people exchange and share information. Moreover, social networking has worked positively towards improving communication skills and efficiency of shy people who fear communicating in a face-to-face setting (Tyson 2010, p. 9). Since such communication only requires participants to express their thoughts in written form, shy people registered in social networks have no reason to restrain from this type of communication. In particular, social networking has enhanced confidence and courage required of people during exchanging thoughts (McNamara 2010, p. 13). The use of social networks in business organizations has significantly changed the manner in which institutional management coordinates their operations. Instead of writing physical memos concerning certain events, managers can nowadays compose digital memos and post them on Facebook or Twitter accounts of the organization for all their employees to easily access them.
Firms and organizations, similarly to Facebook, use consumer behaviour in improving their marketing strategies with the aim of increasing sales and ultimately improving profitability. Consumer behaviour helps businesses to understand the psychology of potential customers, especially the ways they feel, think and select between various products and services. In addition, analysing consumer behaviour helps businesses to understand all types of people and how they make purchasing decisions. Besides, it enables businesses to understand how decision strategies and consumer motivation differ between products that have diverse levels of interest or importance (Assael 2005, p. 29). Importantly, studying consumer behaviour via Facebook helps businesses to understand how consumers are influenced by their environment. Political, socio-cultural, natural, economic, demographic, and technological environments significantly influence consumer responses, decision process, and consumer characteristics. Moreover, researching potential customers and their preferences helps businesses to understand the shortcomings in information synthesis abilities or consumer motivation that influence marketing decisions and outcomes (Siegel 2005, p. 152). Such actions are usually performed even faster due to the fact that many people prefer using social media as a means of communication in the business world. The knowledge of consumer behaviour further helps firms to adjust and improve their marketing strategies and campaigns to appeal to the targeted groups of people more effectively. Despite the benefits of social media in marketing, there are numerous drawbacks that accrue to these media. Social networking via sites such as Facebook has greatly compromised writing skills and the art of communication as a whole. Though communication conducted through social networking entails writing, the result usually comes in the form of short message services (SMS), which degrades people’s thinking and worsens their ability to clearly express their opinion.
Nonetheless, the confidence people tend to have while communicating via social media has negatively worked to increase cyber-bullying. Studying consumer behaviour through social media is critical in business and marketing, particularly in today’s challenging business environment. It helps firms and analysts study organizations, individuals, and various groups and determine their preferences. They use social media to express their experiences and ideas as well as to advertise services and products. In addition, they observe whether the needs have been satisfied and what effects their organizations have on the society and consumers. More importantly, it provides businesses with an opportunity to understand how significantly technological, political, socio-cultural, economic, and natural aspects influences business environment (Goodall, Goodall & Schiefelbein 2010, p. 56). Equally important, social media contributes to the marketers’ and firms’ understanding of the buyers’ characteristics such as personality, knowledge, attitudes, motivation, lifestyle, and perceptions. As has been noted, consumer behaviour can be applied in four main ways including marketing strategy, social marketing, public policy formulation and implementation, and making consumers to form better decisions. Therefore, marketers and companies should fully utilize the benefits of social media to enhance their competitive advantage and improve their revenues and profitability. This is an area that Facebook should improve on and ensure that it increases its profitability. The current state of affairs suggests that social media will continue to grow in importance, scope, volume and reach.
Facebook’s Market Efficiency
Facebook is not as valuable as they think, since the market is not efficient at the moment. For the market to be completely efficient, the investors in the stock market must comprehend the crux and employ all possible means to outperform their goals. Ironically, the investment strategies purported to outperform the current inefficiencies are indeed the triggers that maintain the efficiency of the market. A market has to be big enough and solvent (McNamara 2010, p. 117). Besides, the information available has to be publicly accessible and cost-effective, thus released to the investors at the same intervals. The weak form efficiency is normally refuted by the technical analysis which bases on the historical record of the stock’s market. In addition, there also some investors who have managed to use the statistical arbitrage methods to get abnormal profits. On the contrary, only a smaller section of the real trade successfully makes huge profits, so the variations from the efficiency in the market are optimally small and costly to go about. Conversely, the semi-strong efficient market theory is potentially very near to being a reality, although not at all times (Assael 2005, p. 24). I suppose that Facebook has peaked out and is currently in a state of slow and painful depreciation with regard to its value. This has been caused by frequent abuse of people’s trust among some other reasons. They have not been able to keep up with the evolving nature of the Internet and its users. It is possible that in the next five to eight years, Facebook will become a ghost of its present self.
Conclusion
The digital revolution is essential and inevitable; as a result, most entrepreneurs must embrace social media to sell their products and improve profitability. Nevertheless, social media pose numerous consequences that an entrepreneur must adjust to. Thus, adapting to one’s changing competitive environment is crucial to all businesses. It is noteworthy that business success is more than just having a Facebook account; one needs to learn to use it effectively. Facebook still needs to improve its market efficiency to become highly profitable, thus increasing its value.
