The Benefit of Social Media in the world

If you’re wondering how social media can benefit your business, look no further. We’ve outlined key points below.

1. Gain valuable customer insights

     Social media generates a huge amount of data about your customers in real time. Every day there are over 500 million Tweets, 4.5 billion Likes on Facebook, and 95 million photos and videos uploaded to Instagram. Behind these staggering numbers is a wealth of information about your customers—who they are, what they like, and how they feel about your brand.

Through daily active engagement and social listening, you can gather relevant customer data and use that information to make smarter business decisions. With Hoot suite Insights, for example, you can gather information across all your social networks in real time—allowing you to gauge customer sentiment, find the conversations happening around your brand, and run real-time reports.

2. Increase brand awareness and loyalty

   When you have a presence on social media, you make it easier for your customers to find and connect with you. And by connecting with your customers on social, you’re more likely to increase customer retention and brand loyalty. A study by The Social Habit shows that 53 percent of Americans who follow brands on social are more loyal to those brands.

3. Run targeted ads with real-time results

    Social ads are an inexpensive way to promote your business and distribute content. They also offer powerful targeting options so that you can reach the right audience. For example, if you run an ad campaign on LinkedIn, you can segment by things like location, company, job title, gender, and age he list goes on. If you’re running a Facebook ad, you can target based on location, demographics, interests, behaviours, and connections. You can track and measure the performance of your social ads in real time.

4. Generate higher converting leads

   Social media increases sales and customer retention through regular interaction and timely customer service. In the 2015 Sales Best Practices Study from research institute MHI Global, world-class companies rated social media as the most effective way to identify key decision makers and new business opportunities. In the State of Social Selling in 2015, nearly 75 percent of companies that engaged in selling on social media reported an increase in sales in 12 months.

5. Provide rich customer experiences

    Even if you aren’t on social media, most of your customers expect you to be. Over 67 percent of consumers now go to social media for customer service. They expect fast response times and 24/7 support—and companies that deliver win out. A study by Aberdeen Group shows that companies engaging in social customer service see much bigger annual financial gains (7.5 percent YOY growth) vs. those without (2.9 percent).

6. Increase website traffic and search ranking

    One of the biggest benefits of social media for business is using it to increase your website traffic. Not only does social media help you direct people to your website, but the more social media shares you receive, the higher your search ranking will be. For example, if every person who follows hoot suite on Twitter Retweets this post, it’s more likely to rank higher in Google’s search engine results page for variations of “social media for business.”

7. Find out what your competitors are doing

With social media monitoring you can gain key information about your competitors. This kind of Intel will allow you to make strategic business decisions to stay ahead of them. For example, you can create search streams in hoot suite to monitor industry keywords and mentions of your competitors’ names and products. Based on your search results, you can improve your business to offer product enhancements, service, or content that they may be missing.

        There are many advantages of using social media in education. One the most important is to encourage interaction between students. This is especially helpful in college environments where having students create a bond with the institution can increase retention rates. Of course, along with the advantages of social media in education, there are also some disadvantages and you should gauge the impact your social media activities may be causing students. A social media post can take on a life of its own, and once it is out here, it is pretty much impossible to take back. Even though there is some risk, the benefits can outweigh those risks; you just need the proper social media plan and strategy for how it will be used. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter can be useful in the classroom. There are some items to be concerned with, and it is important to think about what the rules you are going to have with social media. This is no different than rules you may set up for your teenager. The University of Minnesota has put together a really good list of the items to think about here. Higher Education is usually very slow to move in new directions, and Social Media is no different, if the faculty and administrators do not understand it, then they are slow to adopt. In the area of social media, this not only impedes taking advantage of these educational applications, but it also puts the educational institutions at a disadvantage when it comes to recruitment. Since most educators need something scientific before deciding, you may want to read this study on the effectiveness of social media as a communication tool before continuing.

Advantages of Using Social Media for Students in Education

1.     

              Social Media can increase student collaboration. Students become friends with their classmates on social media and are more likely to collaborate on projects. This can lead to higher retention rates as students become more connected to the institution.

2.      

               Faculty can use social media as a way to get students to participate. Many students are naturally shy in person, and many may not speak up in a classroom, but that may not be the case on social media. Today’s students grew up on social media, and for many, it is the natural way to interact. Faculty can ask questions on social media such as Twitter and students can answer those questions, by including a specific hashtag. This not only allows the faculty to find the student answers but also allows other students to see what others are answering and create a dialog. Many learning management systems incorporate a discussion board to accomplish this same educational pedagogy but are just as useful if not more by using a social media platform in Education.

3.      

             Social Media can be useful for team projects. Many colleges stress the importance of the soft skill of working in groups. Social Media sites can be helpful to increase this ability as the students can hold meetings in real time and work on their projects. This enhances the likelihood that they will also spend time together working on projects and may not have to make time to meet in person all the time as the project progresses. Having teams work together using social media only strengthens advantage one and two in your educational activities.

4.      Social media can provide a richer experience for resources. Videos, resource websites, and tutorials can be shared very easily with the entire classroom at the click of the button. This eliminates the need for students to copy website links from a hand-out and have the risk of mistyping. It is much easier just to click a link than to type it.

5.      

               Video Conferencing in the Classroom is also a significant benefit. Using social networking sites such as Google Plus will allow the use of Google Hangouts. These sort of resources can be used to setup class sessions where everyone can collaborate through video in real time. Google Hangouts can also be saved for future reference, in case one of the students has a conflict and cannot make the meeting.

Disadvantages of Social Media for Students in Education

1.      

            Students can get distracted and start using the social media for their personal purposes and not pay attention to the educational content. This is going to happen to a certain extent, and there is not a lot the faculty member can do to prevent it. They key to explain to the students that you are using social media as an educational resource, and they need to stay focused on those task during classroom participation. Using the feedback model for answering questions listed in the advantages of social media will help to reduce this disadvantage.

2.      

               Posting inappropriate content can also be a significant problem. This can damage the reputation of the educational institution and likely one of the reasons that many educational institutions have not embraced social media. This can be overcome by ensuring you have the proper social media policies in place and dealing with students who violate the plan in a manner that still encourages social interaction, but lets them know the need to remain professional. The risk of these sorts of incidents can typically be reduced with proper education of the students. Students, especially those in college that posting inappropriate content on social networks can not only hurt them in their classes but also raise a red flag to potential employers that the student may not be a good fit. Many companies now use social med1ia posts as a background check measure before hiring and having content you would not want your mother to ready could reduce the chance of a student landing a great job. This is also where Google classroom can come in handy. It has many of the social media interaction applications and still will allow you to keep your social media in education somewhat protected and private.

3.     

            Relying too much on social media for communication can stifle a student’s ability to interact in person. This is a problem throughout society and not just limited to education. Many of today’s youth have grown up with technology and many times it is easier for them just to communicate online and not in person. That is one of the reasons to incorporate video conferencing into the classroom as part of your strategy. Having the student interact through a social media technology such as Google Hangouts, can sometimes break the ice and allow them to communicate better in person. This is one of the main reasons that social media in education should be a supplement to your educational activities and not the only method of instructional delivery.

Another reason from my friends

Sharing Your Thoughts And Feelings

Sharing our thoughts and feelings over a wide range of people is one of the major advantage of the social media. Happiness, sadness, joy and other human emotions can be conveyed to friends and family through status, photos, and videos. Social sites like Facebook and Whatsapp help us reach to those people that matter most in our lives and eventually receive appreciation, love, and kindness from them.

Education purposes

Social media has a lot of benefits for the students and teachers. It is very easy to educate from others who are experts and professionals via the social media. You can follow anyone to learn from him/her and enhance your knowledge about any field. Regardless of your location and education background you can educate yourself, without paying for it.