CP fin 9 (Kim Woods) only

2

January 2, 2021

Introduction

Social networking is a critical component in business and has an undisputed impact on marketing and brand development. Platforms offering social networking have been used by organizations to improve performance by providing an essential avenue for communicating with potential customers. This technology has opened up the world, making it easier for business to reach their target market over a short period of time (Gope, 2012).

Additionally, the competition in the market has been elevated to another level, with the small businesses now able to market and advertise their brands without huge investments. Unlike the old times, when vast amounts of capital were required to get to the consumers, it is now easier to deliver a message that reaches everyone on the internet worldwide. Businesses can promote their brands either through paid platforms or free platforms according to their abilities (Gope, 2012).

Marketing and brand development have been transformed by introducing social networking, with most companies shifting their attention to the new trend. This has led to profitability as the capital needed to market and advertise can be redirected to fill other business operations gaps. The technology has further improved relationships between organizations and customers. Feedback is easily accessed, providing the organizations with crucial insights towards their services, enhancing brand loyalty to customers through frequent interactions, and improved website traffic (Zhao & Burt, 2018).

With the increased use of these sites, it is crucial that the business entities well address the social aspects such as morality, health, and education as they interact with their customers. Technology has a significant role in decision-making, and companies must adhere to their customers' data's ethical concerns. This paper focuses on analysing humanities, particularly human behavior and expression, ethics, recommendations on the issues, and future prospects (Zhao & Burt, 2018).

Analysis of Humanities

Human behavior

From the name social networking, it is evident that the sites involve interaction between different people from various backgrounds, ethnicities, religions, races, and nationalities, among many subdivisions. The relationship with these people highly depends on their behaviors, and an individual can influence both directly and indirectly. Addressing the issue is primarily influenced by proper understanding before coming up with solutions.

Therefore, the business must focus their attention on analyzing and developing a strategy to influence human behavior to their advantage without exploiting them. This should adequately come out as a culture of the company. People are mostly accustomed to settings that accept them by accommodating their beliefs, occupations, demands, and interests (Hasani et al., 2019).

The presence of conflict in behavior between people or groups leads to others trying to be above others or requiring more attention. Humans are always in a battle of being at an advantageous position in power, resource allocation, and social status. This results in a competition where the behavioral practices of others are downplayed by those superior to them. There is often a need to suppress others' behavior in society, and these have to be managed effectively by the organization on their social networks to promote equity.

In the workplace, behavior among the staff who control social sites is also a critical concern that needs attention to offer excellent marketing and brand development. It is crucial that the business entity is aware of what they say, how they deliver it, and how the information is received in the outside environment. What kind of behavioral conclusions does it portray to potential customers. Understanding the target population and designing the appropriate approach to use and that to be dropped is beneficial (Hasani et al., 2019).

Human Expression

The world is quickly moving to a more online interaction as compared to physical contact of people. In a significant way, these advancements have affected business operations, with many firms investing more in the use of social networking sites. With more people interacting in these platforms, studies have focused on their effective use in relaying information from psychological and sociological perspectives (Hasani et al., 2019). The studies indicate human expressions as one of the crucial determinants of peoples’ perception.

The social media platforms form a virtual world that requires an expressive approach that creates a more realistic experience. For effective marketing and brand development over the sites, the companies have to develop attention-grabbing expressions that will attract online users from other social media sites. There should be a feeling of uniqueness that is created by eliminating the artificial environment by creating a more natural feel in interactions.

Ethical Issues

As people interact over social networks by sharing and exchanging information, interests, and ideas, ethics must be addressed to avoid infiltration of personal or professional privacy. Customers' privacy includes the use of their information for data mining in unauthorized ways without their consent. Also, introducing cookies that collect data from users, using location sensors to record and monitor users' physical addresses, and face detectors can track similar images on online sites (Jurisová, 2013).

Survey scams are a common privacy concern on social media platforms such as Facebook, which misguides users to click links that lead to downloading unwanted software, hence promoting scammers with commissions from downloads or related links. Twitter users are targeted using shortened URLs that redirect them to undesired harmful sites. Most hackers use appealing messages that popup on social sites that are designed to copy and transfer private information to their computers, which they use for malicious purposes. On the other hand, LinkedIn is characterized by spread-phishers who perform data mining and, in return, acquire useful data from their victims (Jurisová, 2013). They can also use malicious software like z-bot to steal email information and passwords.

Business entities need to safeguard their social network sites to ensure that perpetrators do not use them in evil ways. The intellectual property of customers should be guarded and prevent misleading information from reaching them. Transferring data from an organization to another without the owner's consent is equally an ethical issue that has to be addressed. This is because it goes against social media's protection and privacy policies (Jurisová, 2013).

Recommendations

Efficient use of social network sites for marketing and brand development will definitely lead to any business's profitability and growth. Better analysis of humanities on aspects of behavior, expression, and addressing ethical concerns is pivotal in achieving the goals. This part addresses the recommendations for tackling the three areas.

Human behavior shortcomings must be dealt with to ensure that the customers have a better experience when interacting over social sites. Organizations should develop cultures that bring together different behaviors, such as customs, ethnicity, knowledge levels, and beliefs. This way, they influence the individual actions enhancing understanding, security, unity, and better interactions (Vassileva, 2017). Social conflicts can be eliminated through policies, incentives, and forcing users to comply with set laws. The response to customers on social media during interactions should lead to a positive perception. Staff should be well-groomed and try to respond with non-provocative terms. Customers are always keen on the behavior that affects reviews and comments displayed on the sites when portrayed wrongly.

Human expression is closely related to behavior and can be mitigated in almost similar ways. However, additional recommendations include using photos, films, videos, and other technological aspects in an appropriate way to capture the attention of targeted consumers easily. There should be a clear distinction in the way marketing is done to attract the customers' eyes. To thrive in online brand development, creativity is an important area that cannot be downplayed. Organizations have to create sites that compel the customers to follow them and pass the information to return.

Ethics is a common area of discussion whenever interactions between two or more people are involved. In social networking, there is much exchange of information between customers and organizations. The business firms have the responsibility to protect the information given to them. Companies should ensure that they own the information displayed on their websites. Misleading information that can lead to the installation of malicious software should be eliminated. Permitting other organizations to use customers' intellectual property should only be done after their consent. Ads and promotions from companies should follow privacy regulations to prevent phishing by hackers, which is becoming common on social sites (Vassileva, 2017).

Conclusion

Social networking is the new trend that sets new competition grounds in the business environment today. Marketing and brand development have benefited a lot from the advancements in technology. It can be done over online interaction platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. However, the two activities' effective accomplishment depends on approaches to humanitarian issues like behavior and expression. Ethics also comes in as a way to safeguard the processes. This paper has discussed the three areas simultaneously and come up with recommendations that can be applied to achieve marketing and branding over online sites successfully.

References

Gope, K. (2012). The Impact of the Advertisements on the Social Networking Sites: A Case Study on the Social Networking Users of Bangladesh. UITS Journal, 1(2), 68-85.

Hasani, S., Bahaghighat, M., & Mirfatahia, M. (2019). The mediating effect of the brand on the relationship between social network marketing and consumer behavior. Acta Technica Napocensis, 60(2), 1-6.

Jurisová, E. (2013). The impact of social networking on business and business ethics. In Management Challenges in the 21st Century Conference available via http://www. cutn. sk/Library/proceedings/mch_2013/ed itovane_prispevky/46. % 20Juri% C5% A1ov% C3% A1. pdf.

Vassileva, B. (2017). Consumer Activities and Reactions to Social Network Marketing. Management (18544223), 12(2).

Zhao, C., & Burt, R. S. (2018). A note on business survival and social network. Management and Organization Review, 14(2), 377-394.