Thesis

A 2012 McKinsey Global Institute Report stated that social technologies stand to unlock
$1.3 trillion in business value (Holmes, 2015). Besides financial growth, another positive
aspect about social media use for business is building stronger relationships with
customers and showcasing everything that a brand represents. Social media drives more
traffic to websites than search engines, and the more social media shares a business
receives, the higher its ranking on Google’s search engine results page (Copp, 2016).
Customers are more likely to understand more about a business’ brand if it has a strong
website and social media presence. Many businesses today forget that social media is a
two-way conversation platform and users are less likely to interact with a brand if its
only agenda is to spam followers with sales pitches (Copp, 2016). Three-quarters of U.S.
adults use social media sites and the average user logs in for nearly 1.7 hours a day or 12
hours a week (Holmes, 2015). According to a Pew Internet study, Facebook is the most
popular platform and it is used daily by 76 percent of the studies participants (Pew
Research Center, 2017). This study also stated that young adults were the earliest to
adapt to social media and continue to use platforms at high levels, but usage by older
adults has increased in recent years.
Pew Research Findings on Social Media Usage Across platforms via (Pew Research
Center, 2017):
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