Discuss about the Impact of Social Media on Contemporary Business Communication Of Unilever.
Unilever was established in 1930. The head quarter of company is in London and Rotterdam. The products of company include foods, beverages and personal care products. The company includes more than 400 brands. In 2016, the company reported global revenue of 52.71 billion euros (The Statistics Portal, 2016). The largest segment of company is personal care which created the maximum revenue. The company has plenty of brands in all sections of company such as food, beverage, home and personal care. Dove is the biggest brand of Unilever. It contributed 5.45 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 (The Statistics Portal, 2016). The mission statement of company is to address the need of target customers. The vision of company is to make supportable living common place. It is the best way to grow. In this report, impact of social media on contemporary business communication is discussed. Further the impact of changes on the operations of modern business of Unilever is explained. Finally the opportunities and challenges faced by Unilever have been defined. At last, the conclusion is provided on the usage of social media.
Now a days the modern technologies has changed business world drastically. The biggest difference has come because of communications. The social media communication has created better customer service as a result sales has increased (Rodriguez, Peterson & Ajjan, 2015). The social media helps in more and better communication. The advancement in technology has changed the communication among business. Communication is an important aspect in the entire system. Unilever keeps close to customers as possible by using social media. The trend of social media has increased in business and changed the way company communicates internally and externally (Hassan, Nadzim & Shiratuddin, 2015). The social media is considered as an important communication channel for Unilever. The ways by which company can communicate to it’s customers are:
Connections:
Unilever has started posting information of products and services on social networks to connect with customers. The company focuses more on engaging with clients than selling products. It is less focused on pushing products or services to customers with the aim of making a sale. The company finds ways of engaging customers with unique content. The company also posts about charity or connections with national issues. As Unilever promotes has launched global foundation and charitable Facebook app to create sustainable change worldwide (Kosinski, et. al. 2015). It builds relationship with people who are interested in doing business with company.
Campaigns:
The promotion of products and services and customer feedback in the past used to consume a lot of time and efforts. The use of social media has made this process comparatively faster and takes few minutes to get feedback online. The customers begin engage in brand within minutes of marketing campaign going live. Social media has allowed company to monitor and track performance of campaigns (Felix, Rauschnabel & Hinsch, 2017). The customers can acknowledge compliment or address an issue more efficiently on social media.
Visualization: Unilever connects to customers through social media platform. It provides better visualization to customers to make better and fast decisions whether to buy products or service of company. The visualization was only limited to displaying image or logo of company in the past. Currently the customers can face personalized and customized experiences. It provides more human appearance.
Round the clock presence:
The social media has proved round the clock presence. The company replies messages even during non-working hours on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The customers use these platforms because of the flexible timing. The smartphones has also transformed the way of engaging with customers (Lee, Hang & Beverland, 2017). A person does not have need to turn on computer to check messages and reply.
Unilever has a strong online following. The company has proved itself to be a social media expert. The company has so many sub-brands. A certain level of consistency is required by company to maintain order, eliminate wastage and create cohesive vision. Unilever uses social media for various purposes to support important functions of organization.
Customer co-creation:
Unilever identifies the power and importance of customers. The consumers raise strong voice for their requirements and how important certain product elements are to them. The company has replaced traditional broadcast mediums such as TV and radio with social media platforms. The social media has become a new platform for spreading advertisement. Unilever makes use of online communities such as HeadBox to include customers in the marketing process. It uses target market for the extension of marketing department. It is required for the company that social media is a platform for dialogues between organization and customers than just a one way stream (Uldam, 2016).
Recruitment:
The recruitment activities of Unilever takes place on a number of mediums like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and company’s website (Gerson, Plagnol & Corr, 2016). The reach of company on various platforms makes easy access to candidates. It is one of the most followed companies on LinkedIn. There is substantial amount of reliability between information, organization and recruitment pages of social media. It contributes a clear image of brand and sub brands.
Sales impact:
The sales impact of social media is always discussed and arguments are made. The marketing team of Unilever has done research and proved the positive impacts of sales by using social media. The data collected from social media activities helps in teaching organization about customers. It results in improvement of sales performance (Hajli, 2014). The collected information can be used in advertisements which can result in improved sales. The wastage can be reduced by using social media investments through improved targeting.
Potential lead generation:
The use of social media has potentially generated leads for company. Unilever makes available the details of products on social media before launching of products. It helps in promotion of products. It is also helpful in generating leads. It happens some times that the whole range of products is not available in stores. The whole and detailed information of products of company can be found on social media.
Cost savings:
The social media has saved the spending made on the traditional marketing methods such as newspaper, TV and radios. It is an inexpensive method. Getting leads by social media cuts the cost of company.
Ratings:
The products of the company are given preference on the basis of rating. Better the ratings better leads are. It makes customers to buy products with confidence. It is easy to judge the products which are underperforming. The customers can be encouraged by offering coupon or deals for leaving positive views. Positive views are an easy approach to connect with customers.
Opportunities
Unilever is a multinational consumer goods company. The social media has helped company to attain popularity.
Engage with customers:
Unilever has been successful in engaging with customers through various numbers of channels such as labels, websites and toll free numbers. It has helped company to communicate openly with customers. The company also has provided opportunity to consumers to know the information of ingredients and nutrition value on it’s website (Ngai, Tao & Moon, 2015).The company is committed to build trust through transparent communication. It directs to consumers as well as key stakeholders.
More effective marketing:
Social media has generated more effective marketing for Unilever. The company has been successful by using various social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and company’s website. An advertisement can be displayed on the right side while users operate the Facebook account. The Sunlight project of company has taken towards effective social marketing (Devine & Williams, 2016). The mission of project is to ‘build a bright future’. It generates act of sunlight in various product brands (Parveen, Jaafar & Ainin, 2015).
Responsible marketing and advertisement:
The company is committed to responsible marketing and advertisement. Unilever can promote products through various channels of business communication. The company can successfully sort out the issues such as Dove campaign for beauty challenged stereotypes about beauty. Persil’s ‘dirt is good’ campaign promoted getting dirty is a natural part of growing up for children. It is a part of learning and development. Flora’s campaign of looking after themselves by offering healthy and nutritious products increased the sale of products.
Promotion of new products:
Social media is an effective marketing campaign. The company can successfully promote new products on various social media platforms. Earlier traditional methods used to be costly and used to take more time (Van Dijck & Poell, 2015). The online promotion tools consume less time of company. Unilever can use promotional tools such as discounts and vouchers to promote sale of company. It also provides platform to customers to talk with each other.
Builds brand awareness:
The social media is helpful in building brand awareness. The company is rated on the basis of it’s products. Unilever includes various sub brands. The image of company represents it’s credit worthiness. The positive reviews and comments of company on social media put positive impact.
Recruiting high impact employees:
Now a day’s recruiting talent is expensive and time consuming. But social media likes to attract employees at less cost. LinkedIn is the best way to complete recruitment process. Unilever can focus on social talent by promoting mission, vision and culture of company. It can be helpful in attracting candidates that share the same values (McDonald & Thompson, 2016).
Toxic Content:
Consumers care about the fake news and gossips on social media. Unilever was threatened to pull ads from social media platform as it contained toxic content. The consumers were worried about the fraudulent practices made by company. The ads were pulled off because of the spreading of disinformation in 2015.
Negative customer reviews:
Social media is a big platform to express views about products and services of company. Everyone do not contact directly to company, they choose social media to complain. The negative feedback can spoil the image of company. It is one of the biggest challenges of social media for company (Fan & Gordon, 2014). Each negative comment has consequences for the company.
Strategic shift:
The engagement on social media has come up with new ways of accepting the change to work for the advantage. The social media site provide platform for personal interaction and marketing. It is different from the traditional marketing. The traditional methods cannot be totally ignored by company.
Accidental release of confidential information:
The individuals of internal management of company might reveal confidential information. It damages the competitive advantage of company. The information sent to wrong email address can eliminate the confidentiality of company. Once the confidential information on social media is out, then it’s out.
Increased customer power:
The social media has given more power to customers to express negative comments publically. It can be difficult to contain. It leads to negative publicity. Sometimes it is difficult for the company to control on such negatively publicity. Most of the times, it is out of the reach of company to control (Bello-Orgaz, Jung, & Camacho, 2016).
Conclusion
Unilever used social media to share knowledge and best practices across network. The report has explained the impacts of social media on contemporary business communication. The impact of social media on the Unilever has been justified on the basis of customer co relation, recruitment process, sales impact, rating and potential lead generation. From the above report it can be concluded that the use of social has created more opportunities for Unilever than challenges. The company claimed to save production cost by using social media platform. The opportunities have been supported with examples. The challenges can be converted into opportunities by providing the appropriate solution.
References
Bello-Orgaz, G., Jung, J. J. and Camacho, D., 2016. Social big data: Recent achievements and new challenges. Information Fusion, 28, 45-59.
Devine, J. and Williams, P. N. (Eds.)., 2016. The Chemistry and Technology of Edible Oils and Fats: Proceedings of a Conference Arranged by Unilever Limited at Research Department, Port Sunlight, March 10-12th 1959. Elsevier.
Fan, W. and Gordon, M. D., 2014. The power of social media analytics. Communications of the ACM, 57(6), 74-81.
Felix, R., Rauschnabel, P. A. and Hinsch, C., 2017. Elements of strategic social media marketing: A holistic framework. Journal of Business Research, 70, 118-126.
Gerson, J., Plagnol, A. C. and Corr, P. J. , 2016. Subjective well-being and social media use: Do personality traits moderate the impact of social comparison on Facebook?. Computers in Human Behavior, 63, 813-822.
Hajli, M. N. , 2014. A study of the impact of social media on consumers. International Journal of Market Research, 56(3), 387-404.
Hassan, S., Nadzim, S. Z. A. and Shiratuddin, N. , 2015. Strategic use of social media for small business based on the AIDA model. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 172, 262-269.
Kosinski, M., Matz, S. C., Gosling, S. D., Popov, V. and Stillwell, D. , 2015. Facebook as a research tool for the social sciences: Opportunities, challenges, ethical considerations, and practical guidelines. American Psychologist, 70(6), 543.
Lee, Z., Hang, H. and Beverland, M., 2017, June. Evolution of brand equity: knowledge co-creation between Unilever, advertising agencies and academics, 1950-2000. In Association of Business Historians Conference. University of Bath.
McDonald, P. and Thompson, P., 2016. Social media (tion) and the reshaping of public/private boundaries in employment relations. International Journal of Management Reviews, 18(1), 69-84.
Ngai, E. W., Tao, S. S. and Moon, K. K., 2015. Social media research: Theories, constructs, and conceptual frameworks. International Journal of Information Management, 35(1), 33-44.
Parveen, F., Jaafar, N. I. and Ainin, S., 2015. Social media usage and organizational performance: Reflections of Malaysian social media managers. Telematics and Informatics, 32(1), 67-78.
Rodriguez, M., Peterson, R. M. and Ajjan, H., 2015. CRM/social media technology: impact on customer orientation process and organizational sales performance. In Ideas in Marketing: Finding the New and Polishing the Old (pp. 636-638). Springer, Cham.
The Statistical Portal, 2016. Unilever-Statistics & Facts. Retrieved on 25 April, 2018. Available on https://www.statista.com/topics/1397/unilever/
Uldam, J., 2016. Corporate management of visibility and the fantasy of the post-political: Social media and surveillance. New Media & Society, 18(2), 201-219.
Van Dijck, J. and Poell, T., 2015. Making public television social? Public service broadcasting and the challenges of social media. Television & New Media, 16(2), 148-164.
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