Essay: Impact Of Social Networks On Organizational Performance." (59 Characters)

Boost Juice: A Case Study

Discuss about the Social Networks on Organisational Performance.

generation it is really difficult to imagine business enterprises operating without internet. Due to the presence of internet we are able to book tickets online, shop and make reservation, furthermore, we can also negotiate. Business organization are undergoing massive transformation brought about by the new technologies.  Emergence of social media have revolutionized how business processes are being carried out today. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and other platforms have totally change the way businesses carry out their daily activities and majorly their interaction with customers. This extra ordinary revolution has been brought about by the internet. And just to be factual, it is bringing such a massive impact to every business. [1]

In this generation, however, you may not miss out on some business owners and company CEOs who totally have no idea on the impact of social media. According to Pew Internet project, three quarters of online adults are now using social media. In addition, it has been stated that on average a customer/ social media user logs in 1.7 hours a day that is equivalent to 12 hours a week. Due to this, research states that currently social media drives traffic to the websites more than search engines. It would be absurd to find business enterprises not indulging in social media knowing that both the customers and their competitors are using them. [2]

Boost juice is a fast food business in Australia and lately it has been really using social media to reach to its customers massively. The statistics and analysis of their social media presence is as follows:

To increase these statistics Boost is currently carrying out a contest on social media called what is your game. In this game, participants register into the draw using their name and emails and each person who shares that name is rewarded with a free Boost Juice. It looks really simple but it has proven to be absolutely effective. [3]

The following are some of the ways which have made Boost Juice social media presence noticeable:

Two Way Communication- customer interaction with Boost juice is awesome. They utilize a communication tone that that reflects that of their fans and target market. This type of conversation makes their brand so lively thus, capturing their fans attention.

Reengaging customers by carrying out the ‘what is your name challenge’ they are involving fans who haven’t visited them for a while and giving them the desire to come buy them again.

Social Media Channels that Boost Juice Are Using

Building an Email List when fans register into the contest, Boost Juice gets their email addresses which they can later use to inform and market their products to their fans. This has led to enhancing the interaction points between them and their fans. Customers not only notice their presence on Facebook but also on mail box.

Facebook- this is the most popular social media channel that Boost has subscribed to. Currently Boost have over half a million subscribers on their Facebook page. This channel allows Boost to upload pictures, share videos and products available to their fans. (Brown, 2012). 

Twitter- this is a microblogging channel that Boost is also showing some immense presence. Currently it has over 40000 followers. 

Google+- Boost have 21000+ subscribers on their google plus channel. Thus can reach over 21000 fans on their emails.

LinkedIn- this social channel is majorly dominated by business society. Boost has a profile with this social channel

Instagram- on their Instagram account, Boost have over 65000 followers. This channel facilitates Boost Juice to share photos and videos about their products.

Boost can largely benefit for using social media as a marketing strategy. One should understand believability levels that attach themselves to the contents of social media before launching your effort on social media channels. Depending on how you engage with your clients on social media you can either take your business to a higher level or bring it down. Rules of marketing in such a marketing platform are dictated by the customers. [4]

Putting up information about the products and services you are offering sometimes raises suspicion on the potential customers because it is you who owns the content. When you put up owned content on your website or social media channels one should back it up with facts and claims so as to reduce the level of suspicion. You should develop a platform on the website for the customers to give and post their opinions. [5]

Customers get to believe information that they get from a third party about your business. These third parties include reviewers, Journalists and bloggers whom you don’t pay but gives out a positive word about the business. It is important to let such parties derive their own conclusion on the subject matter about the business.  Social media will aid them in getting the important information about the business. [6]

It is important to ensure that you give feedback to your customers at all times. It should be relevant and addressing their issues. Social media gives you the chance to interact with you customers and thus, you can interact with them as a large group rather than a direct message to individual customer. This theory of two-way communication can be a very useful tool in marketing. [7]

Theory of Communication on Marketing Plan Using Social Media

Simply Measured is a social analytics tool that is used to conduct evaluation of social channel engagements and usability by a business. This tool helps companies to enhance their performance by identifying the channels to focus on and what type of products and events that customers like based on the analysis and report generated. This tool can be used to perform Facebook analytics, competitive analytics, LinkedIn analytics, Instagram analytics, twitter analytics and YouTube analytics. Some of the features provided by this tool include:

Simply measure can be used to easily and quickly measure and analyze daily engagement using a unified cross-channel platform and one can perfume some deep analysis when needed. Simply Measured tool can sort out the analytics depending on the content, profiles, media type, hashtags, comments and many more aspects. In order for one to determine when and where to engage most, one can just click on spikes.

This is a functionality provided by Simply Measured that is used to compare social media presence with competitors. Using this tool Boost can easily compare it influence on social media against that of its rivals in the same industry.

Boost can use this feature to customize its posts on social media channels such as Instagram, twitter, Facebook and others so as to easily carry out engagement analysis on particular posts by ether marketing, events, campaigning, product promotion and many more. This tool can help in evaluation and reporting on the event performance, identification of areas to be optimized, and report progress to stakeholders.

Simply Measured has a very enhanced reporting tool that you can just add stakeholder email addresses to the account and reports will be sent directly to them. Thus, there is no need to report rather convert the time to do other activities. Also scheduled automatic reporting feature aids stakeholders in making timely decisions.

The following are some of the analytics generated by Simply Measured:

Table 1: Facebook Fan Page Scorecard for Boost Juice

Customer Relationship Management- Boost is utilizing social media to strengthen their relationship with fans. For example, the what is your name challenge has helped increase online interaction with the already existing customers and the potential fans. By sharing information about their products, Boost can benefit when customers share such information with other individuals thus expanding the customer territory. To increase the strength of customer relationship, the customer engagement rate should be high. [8]

Social Analytics Using Simply Measured

Customer Retention- Research states that 67% of twitter brand followers are more likely to be users of the brand. Boost are currently using twitter massively to share product values, enhance business-customer relationship and facilitate positive word of mouth. Therefore, this improves efforts of enhancing customer loyalty. [9]

Client Base expansion- Boost juice organization reach new clients by conveying corporate message using channels of social media, through the broadcast of positive responses of their clients in regard to the corporate messages and the organization goods used by many Facebook and Twitter users, and performing product purchases through conversion of their responses. Efforts of traditional marketing like broadcast advertisements and print are complemented by third-party endorsement broadcasts. [10]

 Market Research- Boost turn conversations of social media into business advantage. The organization use social media to look for lifestyle, views and culture that influences the behavior of the customer.  It uses channels of social to get information of a target audience to aid in development of market and advertisement strategies. Through conversations in the social media, the company also get alerted to issues that may bring a negative impact to their existing market opportunities. [10]

 Product Marketing- Boost use social media to directly market their product to the consumer. This kind of marketing technique magnifies messages sent by other product promotions such as press releases and website advertisements. [11]

Competitive Advantage achievement-  Boost company is active in several channels of social media like Facebook and Twitter. As such, the organization is able to listen to a message of the competitor and therefore enabling it in development of business tactics and strategies that counters directly the initiatives of the competitor. This assist the organization achieve a competitive advantage. [12]

Initiatives of Cost Control – channels of social media are relatively cheap and a company can market their products to millions of consumers using these platforms. As such, these channels help Boost company to manage important functions cost such as customer service, sales and marketing. The organization maximizes its return on marketing dollars by depending on social media platforms to get hold of their clients rather than incurring more cost on advertisements and televisions. [13]

Public Relations- Boost organization convey corporate news in real time to their audience using several platforms of social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. As such audience engagement is improved which is a way of preventing bad news from going viral. [14]

Boost Juice Facebook Fan Page Social Media Analysis Report Using Simple Measured

Sales- Boost increases their sales by adding functions of social media to their corporate websites. For instance, ratings of customer product, creating fan and emailing friends options are methods used to engage users of their website. This leads to engagement of the company and the user thus contributing to increased sales of product. [15]

Recruiting- Boost organization uses platforms of social media to reach directly to employees who are potential thus reducing cost and time that could be used to look for employees in other means. As such, the company determines if a program of recruitment reproduce potential employees through responses the organization receives in regard to the advertised positions and program of recruitment itself. [16]

Conclusion

From the above analysis on Boost Facebook fan page, the business can benefit from social media in the following ways:

Boost organization get a clear understanding of their clients and the customers are able to share their ideas and opinions since they know that the organization is listening to them. The organization is also able to receive customer’s opinion and facilitate networking. Through channels of social media Boost is able to respond instantly to customers’ concern, grievances and questions. This assures the customers that they can get assisted with their problems the earliest. As such, the customers help in recommending the brand to other people. Also it can be used to promote and market their product which minimizes cost especially when the company is undergoing on a fixed marketing budget. Platforms such as Pintrest, Facebook and Twitter allow Boost to pass their content without any cost thus making social media an affordable channel of advertisement. [17]

Boost Juice is able to connect to their clients in terms of changing resources, preferences and lifestyle and adapting to the change of their customers’ interest. The organization is also able to deal with dynamic interests and enhance innovation on their marketing campaign. They can also use social media channels to increase awareness of their brand among clients. This is through building their image. Boost is largely exposed to the social media and thus causing traffic into the organization. As such, potential clients are converted to actual clients and so enhancing increase in sales. Social media traffic created in Boost organization is of higher percentage compared to the one created in their website. It is not easy to ask users of social media to leave that platform and visit the organization website. As such the company engage content and ads that are well formulated and compel a call to action that attract consumers to have a look at the properties of the website. [18]

Users of social media engage on the channels first for personal needs. Therefore, Boost company take advantages of this and focus on their audiences’ job titles, interests, and demographics. This provide Boost with an opportunity to divide personal messages based on the requirement. Through the use of Social media channels, Boost is able to see consumers in their true dwelling.  They are able to uncover who their consumers interact with, what their tv shows are, their work place among others. [19]

However, the business may also experience some setbacks due to this fact. The setbacks include: The company’s brand is represented by its’ employees- the brand of Boost company is represented by its employees. It is hard for the company to control their staffs’ activities on social media. If the employees discuss matters of the company on such platforms without appropriate authorization, it can lead to destruction of company’s reputation and pose a challenge to its other investors. Channels of social media can be engaged by multiple users through individual content such as tweets or posts. Boost company engage in such single content by either liking or commenting. However, some of the contents can be negative and so by company liking or commenting on the post can lead to destruction of the company’s reputation, reaching to most followers who extend it to larger audience. [20]

Social media makes it hard to rectify mistake made on social media. Boost company may mistakenly post something confidential on the social media. Once such statements are released on channels of social media they travel very fast and it becomes hard to correct it. mistakes like circulation of confidential information are hardly reversible on these platforms. Customers of Boost company can use platforms of social media to complain on the organizations services and products. The more the complains are received the more the brand reputation is destroyed. [21]

Since most platforms of social media are free, Boost company may take more time focusing their audience on those channels. As much as those channels are free, the organization should understand that time is essential and should be accounted for not only through social media but other activities. The fact that social media channels are free it becomes easier and simple daily for people to post spams and irrelevant information. As such Boost company may find it difficult to reach the targeted audience with informative and valid messages. [22]

Social media is very important to any business but also a business should know how to handles and address social media matters. The following steps can be implemented by Boost in order to enhance social media presence and dominance:

It is important to develop a working strategy. Identify the objectives the objectives that you would want to gain by using social media. Carry out a survey on the different social media channels and ask different individuals about their opinion on their products and services they would like to get.

The platform to be used is also very essential. First you have to identify which platform holds many potential customers, engage them, conduct customer support and carry out promotions and marketing.

Construct a social media team that’s is objectives would be solely PR, promotion, engaging and responding to customer’s queries. This team is responsible for making sure that business image is protected on social media at all time. Sometimes the owners can take this responsibility depending on the size of business enterprise. The social media should be skilled and informed, should be knowing what is trending. What customers are talking about and customize their services depending on that.

The content that is posted on social media is very critical. Any wrong post can lead to destruction and so it is important to ensure that the right content is always posted. Also it is important to ensure that the content is informative and is passing the information that is desired.

Social media is all about capturing attention. And to achieve this the social media team should be very creative on developing the content. For example, if it is a video content it should be brief, catchy and should be able to pass the intended message.

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