Social media facilitates innovation in business. But where is most impacted by its influence? Perhaps it’s the innovation powerhouse United Kingdom, or the USA’s Silicon Valley? Maybe it’s India that is making significant changes through social media. No. Surprisingly, Chinese businesses benefit the most from social media-driven innovation.
From WeChat to TikTok, social media and businesses are driving innovation on a daily basis. Here are some of the most significant innovations affecting businesses worldwide.
Product Development Innovations
We all know that social media can be used for market research. However, it is a tricky task since there are innumerable people who “Like” things without ever buying them. Therefore, the biggest innovation is agile product development through online collaboration. After all, the platforms we see today are all born from the principles set out by social media.
Remote teams are able to communicate, upload files, set targets, limits, and indicators, and even remotely render workloads. These functions are all ideas that came from social media. Being able to have people work internally and externally, allows companies to transcend boundaries and even country limits. This enables them to expand their talent pool, and it is all thanks to social media.
The Management of Customer Circles
Social media changes how marketing teams approach promotions. Campaign planning now happens in phases. These phases include the introduction of loyalty to hedge out the competition, new realms in (online) word-of-mouth marketing, the enhancement of customer satisfaction, and the acquisition of new customers, warm leads, and subscriptions.
Prior to social media, companies were limited in their management of customer circles. With some even going as far as relying on cold calling and spam emails. The most recent innovation is the purchase of other people’s social media accounts through websites like Fame Swap. This allows businesses to buy their audience rather than paying influencers.
Allowing Anybody To Be Heard
Ever wondered how WordPress and systems like Facebook became so popular in such a guided and predictable manner? After all, they are both personal publishing platforms. Despite diverging into very different things, they both allow people to express themselves about things that don’t have commercial appeal. This innovation has led to things we now take for granted. Just think of product reviews on eCommerce websites, business review sites, and shareable testimonials.
Open Source Innovation
Create some software, throw it out on the Internet for free (open source) and let the programming community do the innovating. This was easy enough in the old days. However, it all relied on forums, which were not very efficient. Nowadays, there are plenty of tools, websites, and systems. These allow developers to interact, share content, test programs, and much more. The tools taken for granted on websites like Facebook have helped to create places like W3Schools, Stack Overflow, and GitHub.
Social Online-to-Offline (O2O) Platforms
In other words, the channels that businesses and customers use have diversified. Social media enables innovation in payment channels, distribution channels, and much more. These channels are growing in popularity across the general business world and within each industry and niche.
We now see press release systems in the game development community. These are faster than military systems from twenty years ago. Furthermore, we see places like Mcdonald’s taking orders from apps, websites, the counter, and even from digital signs in stores.
Unrestricted Market Entry
The Internet and social media are mostly to blame for this. However, if we take social media out of the picture, it is fair to say that smaller companies, entrepreneurs, and even foreign companies, may struggle to start. Take, for example, a Shopify store set up by somebody in their bedroom. The store can easily reach a wider scope of consumers thanks to social media. Social platforms make it easier to spread the word to family and friends while encouraging them to do the same.
Changing Customer Service
Social media is the birthplace of the modern live chat function. Furthermore, the use of AI chatbots is a natural extension of the social media platforms powering paid dating sites. These days, when people have a question, they go online to find FAQ sections to see if other people have similar questions.
Auto-responders mean that even if people contact customer support, the automated answers that customers receive may eliminate the need to contact actual humans. Again, social media tools and platforms inspire these innovations.
Human Resources Became Easier
Previously, you were required to do your due diligence and research the people you were hiring. These days, you can pull up information on people very easily. You can find out where they went to school, and what their credit rating is. Websites like LinkedIn even exploit this fact by allowing businesspersons to contact each other directly. There are even automated apps that run through an applicant’s social media to red-flag any items that may eliminate that person from the selection process.
How Does This Help You?
These are just a few ways social media drives innovation in business. There are plenty more, from innovations in big data market research to modern insurance accounts for social credit. This article helps you by highlighting the ways that social media facilitates innovation. With this information, you may copy those innovations or take the reins and evolve them. Moreover, you can take these examples as inspiration that motivates you to come up with your own business innovations.
