Social media is a goldmine of opportunities

Social media

Be it Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, or some new exciting channel such as Helo, Connectd India, and Vero, social media is full of wonderful opportunities, enabling us to showcase ourselves, our skills and our expertise. In short, it is now easier than ever before to brand ourselves and promote things we do.

Those connected to this medium can increase their chances to be visible to the future employer, promote their craft such as art, writings, photography, music, etc. Social media has created a lot of influencers who were actually artists that have become famous in their field after creating accounts for their work.

Social media has dramatically changed the way we do business. It has redefined the idea for businesses by empowering the consumer against corporate. This monumental change in control has turned traditional business models, and the world on its head. This new power structure has given common people a global network for their thoughts through their blogs, Facebook Walls and Twitter feeds. It’s not the Amazon, Alibaba, or Flipkart that is in control, it’s you-the customer more than ever before.

Power of social media together with a global marketplace puts the consumer very much at the center of their world and more in control than at any other time in history. Now, the customer is king, and their opinion really matters because of network’s abundant reach and with unlimited purchasing venues to choose from, they just love it. If they don’t like a company’s policies, or find the shopping process too complicated, or the typo on the catalog page rather annoying, they just move on to something else.

This is awesome. Just one happy and connect customer can start a domino effect of praise which can create a global brand. And just one unhappy customer can become the biggest roadblock on a multi-million dollar campaign and spoil the plan of a mega company.

Social media is much criticized, and often misunderstood and reduced to a list of dos and don’ts. But the upside for companies has never been greater, and market building economics are now less prohibitive. The potential to build brand value, and dynamic communities are completely within reach. Right from large social platforms to innovations in social commerce to flow of new start-ups emerging out of the crowd daily.

Companies often behave that the transparency of social media, especially between companies and consumers is messy and unnatural. In reality, it is just the opposite. Relationship between companies and communities are not new, it just went missing. With online businesses, the sense of local, community and connection with customer got lost when everything was reduced to a click of a mouse. Social media redefined this relationship by becoming a local on a global basis and catalyzed community dynamics.

Social media not only added a new layer of tools and capabilities but more importantly it changed the perspective that it’s not subtle. Businesses needed a human face, and a human voice behind their URL. They were supposed to listen and respond and host their communities on a platform they could interact with other customers, and the company itself. The power of engagement and loyalty of a community can never be questioned.