The Role of Social Media in Enhancing Business Performance

Abstract

Today, internet technology and social media has become a common practice for businessmen. Social media usage has now become a trend and is the most popular digital platform due to its low cost and minimum technical requirements. Social media is not only used by companies as a marketing medium, but also used to access information about market, competitors, and their customers as a tool to enhance business performance and innovation. Furthermore, social media is a mean of external communication in customer relations. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that encourage business owners to adopt social media in their business in addition to knowing what benefits are expected to be obtained when using it. Furthermore, this study explores the benefits and perceived risks of using social media in business. The results of this study prove that social media is very beneficial for business owners in promoting products, reducing marketing costs, improving relationships with consumers, expanding market share, and gaining access to information for product development purpose.