Nowadays, Social media is the medium to socialize and use web-based technology to quickly distribute knowledge and information to an enormous number of users. They allow creation and exchange of user-generated content. Facebook, Twitter, Hi5, Orkut and other social networking sites are cooperatively referred social media. Social media represents low-cost tools that are used to combine technology and social interaction with the use of words. These tools are typically internet or mobile based like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
There are two benefits of social media that are important to businesses, they include:
- Cost reduction by decreasing staff time.
- Increase of probability of revenue generation.
On the other hand, Social media enables companies to: a) Share their expertise and knowledge, b) Tap into the knowledge of their consumers, c) Enables customers helping customers, and d) Engages prediction through customer evangelism.
In sum up, the role of social media in business include: brand reach and awareness, consumer interactions through transactions, referrals and reputation management.