Dear Dony

Social media, being effective for more intimate communication, serving as a gateway to the emotions of consumers and are an important channel for negotiations between the company and its public

Social media has become one of the robust media channels for the promotion of organisational products and services, particularly in the developed economies. Although social media is well-known in the emerging and developing economies but the percentage of the consumers using SM as one of the marketing channels is very low. Hence its impact overall impact is low. But definitely the usage of SM is going to be tremendously increased in the coming years and so as its impact. In general SM is a nerve catcher for the users and hence no company can survive without using SM as a marketing channel.

I wanted to say Huge.. but reading Chacal's answer, I also agree with it. What I think is more of the relationship that has been created even before marketing such product. Say in the Facebook I have build close relationships with my followers. The closer I am, the more I am trusted. At this stage, I will play my marketing strategy through the social interactions I have with the followers.

Social media plays a very important role. What has been observed is that it impacts directly as well as indirectly because active SM users are more likely to go after the branded market.

http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2011/how-social-media-impacts-brand-marketing.html

Beside the great role that social media plays, it bridges the gap between an organization and its customers/consumers. A customer may be close enough to the providers where he/she can directly and informaly collaborate in service/product delivery or design. In other words the feeling of a customer being involved could increase the loyalty and trust.

Social media has impacted increasingly in the lives of all people. Will be well used if people take good use of its resources. Unfortunately, as it serves as a great channel to the emotions of users, has been serving for many things that should not be encouraged.

Prof. El-Mowafi, i like the words "you have to use or you will lose" seems its give sm a new approach to marketing from traditional word of mouth, more to branding.

For Miss chalal and petra, i see it in different view,in my country sm usage is not low its moving fast forward from medium to high, not only f-marketing or t-matketing but going to m-marketing using social media (f for facebook,t for twitter and m for mobile).

For all thanks for enriching the question through your answer.

I agree with Abdalla. You use or prepare to loose. Social media promotion is not an add on. It must be part of the market planning process and must be integrated in taking a strategic management position

Prof. Nageswara, thank you for the reference, great overview from nielsen seeing soc-med as branding tool in marketing product.

When Prof. Nageswara said bridges consumer with producer it goes to advances of word of mouth in creating not only customer relationship but customer experience by branding, keep customer loyalty and resistence. Expanding to marketing 3.0

Media used to be the fourth power in any system. Now days, it is the first and been exploited positively and negatively. I leave the details to everybody’s intelligence.

Social media has huge impact on marketing. In current globalization where media has influence over all activities of world, it is fastest and cheapest way of marketing.

social marketing makes a emotional impact for this current generation , though makes postitive and negative intelligence

I suspect that the Strategic management of social media usage is (at present) highly undervalued. Popular opinion often treats social media as frivolous rather than meaningful. However the sheer impact and volume of usage cannot be ignored. Therefore when we talk about strategic management, we need to appreciate that any social media strategy cannot be seen as a singularity, but rather as a part of an combined tactic that relies on dynamic interaction ( just as we are doing on researchgate!). Social marketing retains currency only as long as it is reposted, retweeted, and to some extent re-invented. So for some people who have "tested the water" their experience has been disappointing because they have treated their experiment as an individual experience. Whilst more experienced users will always note the value of the aggregated and collaborated power of multiple endorsement and multiple exchange of ideas.

“Content-based marketing gets repeated in social media and increases word-of-mouth mentions; it’s the best way to gather buzz about a product.” Marsha Collier (@Marshacollier)

Social Media Marketing is one of the Channels for Marketing... However when a Product/Service is out on to market for SALE... then the reach is the one takes prime importance... Not denying the fact that Social media has its own Positives, but relying only on it make not yield better results, unless the WHOLE OF TARGET GROUP is covered within the media..

Enclosed Strategic Marketing Mgt...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262282435_Strategic_Marketing_Management?ev=prf_pub

Data Strategic Marketing Management

And most of old population who were marginalized by their young generation use the social media for amusements and socialization with each other.

Social media and new marketing channels can have a great impact and can help reduce costs. However, only if used in an efficient and professional manner. Unfortunately, most businesses don't understand that just creating a social media profile and placing it on your website is, under any circumstances, not enough and efficient. Just like many businesses don't understand the importance of content on their websites and in the social media profiles.

Dear Dony

Indeed as has been very ably discussed in most of the threads so far, social media has come to stay as a very important strategic tool by most businesses. So far, it has largely been used as a facilitator of the marketing function; also it is used as an extremely important tool for recruitment and selection. Further, it helps building the employer brand of the organization concerned.

I am attaching a reference that discusses how in the South African context, social media has had a big impact on engaging the existing and new customers. .

http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=12&sid=95776b5b-9127-449b-a28c-e4e5e7fa473b%40sessionmgr111&hid=127&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=bth&AN=87630793

Dear all Prof. Thank you for the input enriching my question, i m also intrested in prof adel a new model can i have it your article as prof kamal.

Its interesting phenomenon as i see it as development of word of mouth marketing approach its impacting traditional direct marketing thou.

As prof debi mention sm is a facilitator,new media channel and tool for marketing.

Sir david cook, do you have any reference regarding your opinions about strategic management of usage highly undervalue since i just heard it and no reference i found about it.

Today a business's presence in the social media environment has become increasingly important, whether you think of it as a way to engage with your audience, to reach out to new business opportunities or to maintain your online reputation. To achieve this objective off-course your strategic planning need to support online marketing campaign and inspire you to launch the right social media strategy.

I just posted this link in response to another question, but I think it's so useful and relevant that it is worth posting again. Reading through this conversation, I see social media referred to as a channel, which I would describe as conventional marketing wisdom. it's not wrong, but it may no capture the total impact of social media on the business entity. Read this free report from MIT/Deloitte and see if you agree on the concept of social business.

http://bit.ly/Wa8Uxj

Thanks a lot, Mary Lou, for this very interesting and enlightening resource! I wholeheartedly agree with you that we should go "beyond marketing", even though it might be the most obvious organizational social media application and impact. 

In a recent article, we argue in the same direction as the study you referenced. Our article - with bibliographic info attached (feel free to contact me if you shouldn't have access to text) - shows that the literature on social media and organizations has had a very narrow focus on customers, i.e., marketing topics (probably because companies have so far mainly focused on this stakeholder group). That way, many other important stakeholders are left out, for example shareholders, employees, NGOs etc. We should reach a more holistic understanding of social media's impact on organizations and investigate how they influence the governance of corporations.

Article The impact of online media on stakeholder engagement and the...

An excellent point, Christoph. Two things occur to me. Some companies do focus on employees, Zappos is a good example often cited. You might enjoy following the work of Mark and Cheryl Burgess on The Social Employee. Second, I wonder if groups like social media engaged shareholders are reached by the same communications that reach customers. Is it worth the trouble to try to segment channels like twitter and Facebook when email can effectively reach targeted groups with access to all types of media? In any event, it is an interesting observation.

http://www.bluefocusmarketing.com/book-the-social-employee/

Inetresting facts, I'm doing a project on the impact of social media & e-marketing on SMME's in the black Market in terms of how they could be developed through the platforms and really I could absorb your facts , thanks @Mary Lou Roberts the Deloitte report helped a lot and I also agree with Christoph's point.

I'm glad you found the material useful. Since you're working with SMMEs you might also find this presentation on content marketing helpful. Content marketing can be effective at low cost (in dollars, if not in time) and is well within the reach of most SMMEs.

http://slidesha.re/1hTRSf6

Rosenbloom (2013: xviii) points out that “as we move into the second decade of the twenty-first century, new technologies coupled with globalisation have dramatically transformed marketing as well as the expectations of customers served by marketing channels. Conventional ‘bricks and mortar’ channels have not only been dramatically augmented by online channels, but customers can also shop while literally being on the move from locations all over the globe with a laptop, iPhone, iPad or other device.”