RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

In business world. Selling products through online is also challenging. We need a

good and best marketing plan and strategies in order the business be a
successful one. Developing a mindset of a wise and humble entrepreneurs, the
business will not fail its bankruptcy.

Another place in which a marketing strategy comes in handy is “resource

allocation. Your business, no matter how big, will always have limited resources
on hand, which necessities the need of efficient management so that these
resources can be used with maximum efficacy. A sound business plan helps you
weave together resources like employees, brand value, clientele, trademarks, and
supply partners etc, to achieve a competitive advantage and also create products
and promotion that speaks directly to your target market. If resources are not
managed efficiently, then business is likely to lose both revenue and customers
in the long run. Thirdly, business expansion is also a goal which cannot be
achieved without strategy. If your expansion goal are laid out in great detail, then
it will help team leaders and executives to explore opportunities outside of your
standard business practice to facilitate company expansion. You will be able to
set aside budget and hire appropriate people for market research that can not
only collect and collate data, but also analyze trends to help you spot untapped
niches.

According to (Friedman,2020) “ Target report the greatest percentage increase

in quarterly sales in the company’s history “. Large companies such as Wal-Mart,
Home depot, and Wayfair have reported surpassing historical revenue
benchmarks in these last few months alone.

According to (Stockdale, Ahmed, & Scheepers, 2012) Social media has been
helpful too in many businesses by allowing companies to understand their
customers-base and make decisions using the informative knowledge. Business
value “can be generated by recognizing that social media is a tool that must be
incorporated in existing strategies and used to support existing business
objectives.

Later researchers explored the value both big data analytics and social media
analytics can bring to SMEs. In 2018, a study was done to explain why the
functional complementary between social media diversity (this is, the use of
diverse social media channels) and analytics enables synergies that generated
super-addictive value” (Dong & Yang, 2018). By integrating social media and
analytics, a business can generated customers insight that can be applied to the
value chain beyond the scope of customers relations and low cost marketing.
Social media analytics can be helpful tool on other areas of the value chain, such
as order fulfillment and new product development stages.
In terms of key marketing processes, social media analytics can be useful not only
in customers relationship management, but also in customers service
management, order fulfillment, and product development.

According to (Fan & Gordon, 2014) social media allows for transparent
communication from the business to the consumers with the use of public
comments, message, likes, and posts. The data retrieved from these large pools
of users-generated content can allow for a deeper understanding of what the
target customer dislike or wants to see more of. Large and small businesses
realize the insight social media analytics can bring to all phases of a product or
services life cycle. This includes, “Insight into changing consumer interests and
tastes, influential users, ad campaign effectiveness, how to respond to crises, and
competitive intelligence”

Social media is a tool to bring like minded individuals together in a virtual space.
By analyzing the large sources of data social media generates, organizations can
make better predictions regarding business decisions. The ability to only use
social media as a platform for data collection and analytics but the ability to use
social media as a platform to generate and execute sales may provide
businesses an innovative way to continue their business, regardless of the
current circumstances. This can be done with the use of social commerce.

According to (Poyry, Parvinen, & Malmivaara, 2013) Social commerce can

generally be defined as “ commerce activities mediated by social media”.
Thanks to the increase in social media and user generated content, customer
behavior are becoming easier to track over time. When social media networking
sites such as Facebook or Twitter came to market, many businesses used these
channels as a main advertising platform. Because of social media
platforms, online advertisements increased from 8.09 billion in 2000 to 124.6
billion in 2019 ( PwC & IAB, 2020). As time went on, there has been a noticeable
shift in the way customers react to products or services on social media channels.
Social media is shifting from a marketing channel to a sales channel because
customers are shifting from “browsing behaviors to participatory behaviors”.

According to (Statista Research Department, 2019) Fast forwarding to 2020,

social media usage and influence on consumers have increased dramatically and
so has the adoption of social media commerce strategies in business. In a more
recent survey published on the business data platform, Statista.com, social
commerce reached 22 billion in US dollars in the year 2019, resulting in the
prediction that “ US social commerce is projected reach 84.2 billion US dollar in
2024 and accounting for 7.8 percent of US retail e-commerce sales”.
The social commerce channel is a step beyond target advertising and e-
commerce strategies because the user is no longer asked to click on a hyperlink
that will re-direct him or her to the business website to complete their online
purchase. Instead, the sales cycle is shortened significantly because the user
can now make their purchase right from social media platform with a simple “Buy
Now” button. Because of the algorithms already embedded in social media
platforms to create the most personalized content experience for the user, social
commerce allows for a similar experience with personalized shopping content.

Marketing strategies are always important and we need to do it right so that our
business will be more interesting and fun. Don’t rush anything and do your best
always. I know it’s hard but in the end all of this hard work and patience we did
will be worth it. Entrepreneurs need to develop proper strategic crisis planning in order
to survive and recuperate from challenging occasions.