RESEARCH WORK

IN

CPE103

Submitted by: Jorge P. Sebastian

Date: December 06, 2019

 1. What are the benefits of advertising on social media channels?

 Increased Brand Awareness

Social media is one of the most cost-efficient digital marketing methods used

to syndicate content and increase your business' visibility. Implementing a

social media strategy will greatly increase your brand recognition since you

will be engaging with a broad audience of consumers. To get started, create

social media profiles for your business and begin interacting with others. Get

employees, business partners, and sponsors to "like" and "share" your page.

Simply having people interact with your content will increase brand awareness

and begin building your reputation as a business. Each post that is shared will

be introduced to a new network of individuals, which can lead them to

becoming potential customers, and the more people who know about your

business, the better. By investing only a few hours per week, over 91% of

marketers claimed that their social marketing efforts greatly increased their

exposure. There is no doubt that by simply having a social media page your

brand will benefit, and with regular use it can generate a wide audience for

your business.

 Reduced Marketing Costs

Compared to conventional marketing, social media marketing does not require a

lot of monetary resources. With an internet connection and computers, a

company can minimize its marketing costs by a significant margin. But as the

business landscape continues to evolve, traditional marketing methods begin to

fade out in favour of less resource-intensive methods. Therefore, using social

media to market products and services is an efficient way of reducing companies’

operational costs.

 Improved Search Engine Rankings

Although posting on social media might get your business some site traffic, more

effort than that is required to see significant success. Search engine optimization is

very important for achieving higher page rankings and obtaining traffic to your

business website. While social media doesn't directly increase search engine

rankings, Social Media Examiner states that more than 58% of marketers who have

been using social media for one year or longer still see improved search engine

rankings. Being able to rank in the top positions for your keywords will revolutionize

your traffic and continue to generate positive results for your business. Let's face it,

everyone uses Google to find information, and they likely won't navigate past page 1

because their answer normally is on the first page of results. If your business website

isn't ranked towards the top of search engine results, you should probably adjust your

search engine optimization strategy. To give yourself the best chance of ranking

better through social media, create high quality content that integrates your targeted

keywords. Content such as blogs, infographics, case studies, business information,

and employee photos will make your business's social media profile intriguing and

credible. Once you begin posting quality content, you'll begin to build a social media

community where followers will "like" and "share" your content. Most importantly, it

gives you more opportunities to get in front of industry influencers who will write about
your business and provide links back - which will help to directly increase search

engine rankings.

 Higher Conversion Rates

With increased visibility, your business gains more opportunities for conversion.

Every blog post, image, video, or comment may lead viewers to your company's

website and increase traffic. Social media marketing allows your business to give a

positive impression through a humanization factor. When brands are interactive by

sharing content, commenting, and posting statuses on social media, it personifies a

brand. People prefer to do business with other people, rather than companies. Over

51% of marketers claimed that taking the time to develop relationships with

consumers showed positive results in sales. The better impression you make on a

visitor, the more likely they are to think of your business when the need for your

product or services arises. Studies have also shown that social media has a 100%

higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing. When a brand is interactive

online, consumers who follow your brand's accounts often begin to more completely

trust the credibility of your business. People use social media platforms to stay

connected to their friends, family, and communities. Since people are already talking,

why not throw your brand into the mix? More likely than not, they'll mention your

brand to a friend when your products or services are needed, overall providing your

business with social proof of its quality. As reported by Social Media Examiner, about

66% of marketers saw lead generation benefits by using social media platforms at

least 6 hours per week. Putting your brand in an atmosphere where people are
sharing, liking, and talking, can only improve the conversion rates on your existing

traffic.

 Better Customer Satisfaction

Social media is a networking and communication platform. Creating a voice for your

company through these platforms is important in humanizing your company.

Customers appreciate knowing that when they post comments on your pages, they

will receive a personalized response rather than an automated message. Being able

to acknowledge each comment shows that you are attentive of your visitors' needs

and aim to provide the best experience.

 Improved Brand Loyalty

One of the main goals of almost all businesses is developing a loyal customer base.

Considering that customer satisfaction and brand loyalty typically go hand in hand, it

is important to regularly engage with consumers and begin developing a bond with

them. Social media is not just limited to introducing your brand's products and

promotional campaigns. Customers see these platforms as a service channel where

they can communicate directly with the business. The millennial generation is known

for being the most brand loyal customers of all. Born between the early 1980's and

the early 2000's, millennials are the largest generation in US history -- and will soon

completely consume the market. Studies show that this segment of customers is

62% more loyal to brands that directly engage with them on social media. Since

these technology natives require communication with their brands, businesses must
implement social media marketing to get the attention of their most influential

consumers.

 More Brand Authority

Customer satisfaction and brand loyalty both play a part in making your business

more authoritative, but it all comes down to communication. When consumers see

your company posting on social media, especially replying to customers and posting

original content, it makes you appear more credible. Regularly interacting with

customers demonstrates that your business cares about customer satisfaction, and

is available to answer any questions that they might have. Satisfied customers are

eager to spread the word about a great product or service and they usually turn to

social media to express their opinion. Having customers mention your business on

social media will advertise your business, and show new visitors your value and

brand authority. Once you obtain a few satisfied customers who are vocal about their

positive purchase experience, you can let the advertising be done for you by actual

customers who enjoyed your product or service.

 Cost-Effective

Social media marketing is possibly the most cost-efficient part of an advertising

strategy. Signing up and creating a profile is free for almost all social networking

platforms, and any paid promotions you decide to invest in are a relatively low cost

compared to other marketing tactics. Being cost-effective is such an advantage

because you can see a greater return on investment and retain a bigger budget for
other marketing and business expenses. If you decide to use paid advertising on

social media, always start small to see what you should expect. As you become

more comfortable, fine tune your strategy and try increasing your budget. Just by

spending a small amount of time and money you can significantly increase your

conversion rates and eventually get return on investment on the money you initially

invested.

2. Define Electronic Commerce

 E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the buying and selling of

goods and services, or the transmitting of funds or data, over an

electronic network, primarily the internet. These business

transactions occur either as business-to-business (B2B), business-

to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer or consumer-to-

business. The terms e-commerce and e-business are often used

interchangeably. The term e-tail is also sometimes used in

reference to the transactional processes for online shopping.

A. Business-to-Consumer E-Commerce (B2C)

B2C traditionally referred to mall shopping, eating out at restaurants,

pay-per-view movies, and infomercials. However, the rise of the

Internet created a whole new B2C business channel in the form of e-

commerce or selling of goods and services over the Internet. B2C

became immensely popular during the dotcom boom of the late 1990s
 when it was mainly used to refer to online retailers who sold products

and services to consumers through the Internet.

B. Consumer-to-Consumer E-Commerce (C2C)

C2C represents a market environment where one customer purchases

goods from another customer using a third-party business or platform

to facilitate the transaction. C2C companies are a new type of model

that has emerged with e-commerce technology and the sharing

economy. Customers benefit from the competition for products and

often find items that are difficult to locate elsewhere. Also, margins can

be higher than traditional pricing methods for sellers because there are

minimal costs due to the absence of retailers or wholesalers. C2C sites

are convenient because there is no need to visit a brick-and-mortar

store. Sellers list their products online, and the buyers come to them.

3. What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is the delivery of different services through the Internet.

These resources include tools and applications like data storage, servers,

databases, networking, and software. Cloud computing is named as such

because the information being accessed is found remotely in the cloud or

a virtual space. Companies that provide cloud services enable users to

store files and applications on remote servers and then access all the data

via the Internet. This means the user is not required to be in a specific

place to gain access to it, allowing the user to work remotely. Cloud
 computing can be both public and private. Public cloud services provide

their services over the Internet for a fee. Private cloud services, on the

other hand, only provide services to a certain number of people. These

services are a system of networks that supply hosted services. There is

also a hybrid option, which combines elements of both the public and

private services.

4. Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing

Advantages

 Do more with less. With cloud computing, companies can reduce

the size of their own data centers — or eliminate their data center

footprint altogether. The reduction of the numbers of servers, the

software cost, and the number of staff can significantly reduce IT

costs without impacting an organization’s IT capabilities.

 Flexible costs. The costs of cloud computing are much more

flexible than traditional methods. Companies only need to

commission – and thus only pay for – server and infrastructure

capacity as and when it is needed. More capacity can be

provisioned for peak times and then de-provisioned when no longer

needed. Traditional computing requires buying capacity sufficient

for peak times and allowing it to sit idle the rest of the time.
  Always-on availability. Most cloud providers are extremely

reliable in providing their services, with many maintaining 99.99%

uptime. The connection is always on and as long as workers have

an Internet connection, they can get to the applications they need

from practically anywhere. Some applications even work off-line.

 Improved mobility. Data and applications are available to

employees no matter where they are in the world. Workers can take

their work anywhere via smart phones and tablets—roaming

through a retail store to check customers out, visiting customers in

their homes or offices, working in the field or at a plant, etc.

 Improved collaboration. Cloud applications improve collaboration

by allowing dispersed groups of people to meet virtually and easily

share information in real time and via shared storage. This

capability can reduce time-to-market and improve product

development and customer service.

Disadvantages

 Vulnerability to attacks. Storing data in the cloud may pose

serious challenges of information theft since in the cloud every data

of a company is online. Security breach is something that even the

best organizations have suffered from and it’s a potential risk in the

cloud as well. Although advanced security measures are deployed

 on the cloud, still storing confidential data in the cloud can be a

risky affair.

 Network connectivity dependency. Cloud Computing is entirely

dependent on the Internet. This direct tie-up with the Internet

means that a company needs to have reliable and consistent

Internet service as well as a fast connection and bandwidth to reap

the benefits of Cloud Computing.

 Downtime. Downtime is considered as one of the biggest potential

downsides of using Cloud Computing. The cloud providers may

sometimes face technical outages that can happen due to various

reasons, such as loss of power, low Internet connectivity, data

centers going out of service for maintenance, etc. This can lead to

a temporary downtime in the cloud service.

 Vendor lock-in. When in need to migrate from one cloud platform

to another, a company might face some serious challenges

because of the differences between vendor platforms. Hosting and

running the applications of the current cloud platform on some other

platform may cause support issues, configuration complexities, and

additional expenses. The company data might also be left

vulnerable to security attacks due to compromises that might have

been made during migrations.

 Limited control. Cloud customers may face limited control over

their deployments. Cloud services run on remote servers that are

 completely owned and managed by service providers, which makes

it hard for the companies to have the level of control that they would

want over their back-end infrastructure.

5. Give actual Advertisements (examples) of the listed 6 most effective types

of social media advertisement (print out the screenshot)

References:

https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/advantages-of-social-media-marketing

https://edkentmedia.com/5-benefits-advertising-social-media/

https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/e-commerce

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/btoc.asp

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/ctoc.asp

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cloud-computing.asp

https://www.skyhighnetworks.com/cloud-security-blog/11-advantages-

of-cloud-computing-and-how-your-business-can-benefit-from-them/

https://intellipaat.com/blog/tutorial/amazon-web-services-aws-

tutorial/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-cloud-computing/