Global E-Business Management

Group Assignment

Submitted by:

1. Somya Iyer – 201901329

2. Nazar Khan – 201902475
3. Aarti Shah – 201900633
4. Rajvi Chatwani – 201900929
5. Priya Modgill - 201901292

Submitted to: Mr. Armando Barragan

Program + Semester Course Name Section Code IN2263-
IBM II-G2 Global e-Business Management G2

Percentage Weight of Total

Type of Evaluation
Summer 2020 Evaluation 20
Assignment
%

Course Instructor Due Date

Armando Barragan Week 9 (July 13, 2020) Total Marks: /100

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Include THIS PAGE AS A COVER OF YOUR ASSIGNMENT, WITH THE NAME AND STUDENT ID
NUMBER of all group members.
2. Do not include a copy of the article in your submission.
3. Read carefully the article attached, and use all information considered relevant to address the
questions presented on this case in a minimum Five pages MS Word Document (Font: Times
New Roman 12).
4. Use the book provided in Google Classroom as a reference. Cite properly every document
consulted (including web sites).
5. You MUST include: Introduction and Conclusions.
6. Any plagiarism will lead to a zero grade in the assignment.
7. The final mark will consider: organization, neatness, and completeness.
8. 25 % penalty per day for late submission.
CRITICALLY ANALYSE THE ARTICLE (SEE ATTACHMENT) AND STATE YOUR
OWN VIEWS ON THE DEVELOPMENT AND CONCLUSION PRESENTED BY THE
AUTHORS, SHOWING ESPECIAL EMPHASIS IN THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:

Introduction:
In today’s globalized world social media has become one of the prime form of digital
communication. It has revolutionized ICT like never before. Almost half of the total world
population spends hours on social media. This automatically makes it an important platform for
companies to market their products to users. Digital marketing tools, online word of mouth
marketing, Key Ad words etc. are also one of the most learned topics academically. The
landscape of social media is highly dynamic and changes every minute. Nowadays mobile,
laptop and computer manufacturers have integrated social media by providing applications
which enable user to share digital content. Platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
Linked In etc. are some popular networking sites for users to connect with friends and family or
follow people with similar ideals and beliefs. Other sites such as Wikipedia and Google provide
users with each and every information that the user is looking for. Certain positive aspects of
social media usage is that it increases knowledge of the user, helps in networking, access to
educational information, connects with people having similar hobbies and interests, benefits
business as businesses can spend much lesser to reach a larger audience and many more. On the
other hand social media also has several downsides. In today’s increasingly digital world one
can stay online for hours without any actual human interaction and this can cause mental illness
such as depression and a person can tend to feel lonely. It can also cause health issues as a person
may spend all day in front of a computer or mobile phone. Other issues such as misinformation,
hacking, threat to privacy etc. are also an integral part of using social media.

In the article social media is divided into 3 time zones: present, immediate future, near future
and the far future. Present provides us with an overview of social media in today’s world. The
immediate future discusses social media at an individual, corporate and public level and
addresses the omni-social presence of social media, influencers and privacy concerns. The near
future indicates how social media will potentially be used to combat loneliness and isolation, in
customer care and as a political tool. The far future presents us with a futuristic view point on
development of social media to increase sensory richness, convergence of online and offline
channels as well as usage of artificial intelligence to add social bots that will take social media
to another level.
We will now provide you with a brief on consumer engagement, integrated customer care,
augmented reality, social bots, integrating haptics into media content and social media as a
political tool.
CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT

In my opinion I believe that social media helps people to communicate openly with others and
offers several opportunities for advertisers to reach out to customers and engage with them. This
is not surprising that marketers have adopted social media as a marketing medium, given the
vast potential audience available that spend several hours a day using social media across the
different channels. Social media has also been adopted, and a wide body of research has been
built on social media marketing and related subjects such as online word of mouth (WOM) and
online networking. In the sense of consumer behaviour and marketing, it is important to
understand the future of social media, as social media has become a critical marketing and
communication platform for companies, organisations and institutions alike.

Social media is growing always. This is due to continuous innovation on both the technological
side (e.g., the main networks continuously introducing new apps and services) and the user /
consumer side of social media (e.g., people seeking new uses for social media). More recently,
we have seen the rise of social media platforms where images and videos replace text, such as
Instagram and Snapchat. People around the world are currently using social media in its various
forms e.g. news feeds on Facebook and Twitter, private messaging on WhatsApp for a number
of purposes, which can generally be categorised as digitally communicating and socialising with
known others, such as family and friends, doing the same thing but with unknown people, but
sharing common interests, viewing and contributing to digital content, such as news, gossip and
product reviews created by users. Consumers now live in a world where social media intersects
with most sectors of life through interactions with people on social website. For everything like
food, music, travel they have different options available on social media to gain information
about the same. From a marketing viewpoint it can be seen that practically any aspect of a
consumer's decision-making process is vulnerable to impact on social media. Need recognition
may be activated when a consumer is watching their friends, relative or their favourite influencer
doing something good or innovative on various social media sites like facebook, instagram, or
youtube.

A consumer shopping for a car may be looking for information by asking their Instagram friends
what models they would recommend. A hungry staff member will sift through zomato reviews
to determine various lunch options. A traveller may book future accommodation using Airbnb.
Although the decision making process involves many other things too but independent scenarios
show that social media has the potential, from beginning to end, to affect the entire cycle of
consumer decision-making.

Social media engagement is more than just followers accumulating across social networks. It's
also a indicator of how many people on a regular basis pay attention to and engage with
everything. As a result, the social media connects users and affects them a lot. I assume that
social media engages customers in many different ways because of all the reasons mentioned
above. The rise of social influencers have impacted consumers a lot in recent years and it has
resulted as a good marketing strategy.

Social media platforms can help in a number of ways with level of consumer satisfaction and
engagement. That's why they've become enormously famous among companies around the
world. Social networking also makes it much easier to communicate with specific consumers,
in addition to successful interaction and contact. Overall social media affects consumers and it
has become a day to day part of their life.

INTEGRATED CUSTOMER CARE

Social media, using improved research tools and extraordinary consumer knowledge will enable
customer care to be practically invisible. Customers can interact seamlessly with companies
from almost any device. In this competitive world, customer care will change substantially in
the near future, through digital channels. Many brands have used social media platforms as a
place to provide customer care, address specific customer questions and fix issues. All
businesses are using various approaches to communicate and engage with customers in order to
provide them with the best services through social media. Customer care based on social media
is expected to become even more customised, personalised and omnipresent in the future.
Customers will be able to engage with companies anywhere and anytime, and solutions to the
problems of customers will be more accessible and immediate, even before a customer notices
a problem or has a question in his mind.

Companies are learning a great deal by communicating on social media for service or care-
related purposes with customers. Customer care is implemented in smartphone apps and on
social media platforms mostly through direct messaging. It does seem, however, that companies
want to make it easier for consumers to communicate with them whenever and wherever they
may need it. In the case of customer support services there are several developments because
companies want customers to quickly contact them directly in any way possible. The immediate
future of customer care on social media seems more efficient and far-reaching.

New tools have arisen to make the customer-firm relationship effortless. Most of this is via
instant messaging apps for businesses that have recently been introduced as business-related
features in existing platforms by many leading technology firms ( e.g. contact business features
in Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, or Apple's Business Chat). These technologies allow
businesses to connect with their customers directly via social media messaging services. Using
the messaging system, which is mostly based around chatbots and virtual assistants, customers
may message a business, ask them questions or even order products and services. This practise
is expected to become more popular, particularly because it brings brands and businesses into
the social media messaging channels already used by their customers to communicate with
others, it offers faster, immediate responses.

Overall, I think integrated customer service has been improved over the years and social media
is one of the key features through which this is more easily possible.

AUGMENTED REALITY
Under the long term influence of social media there lies a section called augmented reality. This
aspect provides users with increased sensory richness in the form of Snapchat, Facebook,
Instagram filters as well as Emojis, GIS’s and many more aspects. My take on Augmented reality
is that it provides the user with amazing visual, olfactory, auditory and a futuristic haptic and
somatosensory richness. It’s not only used in social media but has a myriad of other uses such
as navigation during driving, training missions for soldiers, sky map through overlays of
constellations, planets etc., 3D makeup preview, 3D preview of furniture in your room or 3D
preview of how certain accessories such as rings, eyeglasses, earrings, nail paints, lip color etc.
will look on an individual, games, medicine and many more.
Augmented reality is
not just a social media
tool but a real life
necessity in certain
occupations ranging
from designing,
navigation, military
training to medicine. It
provides the users with
a clue of what is
happening in a safe
environment during
simulations provides
the users with
maximum
predictability. AR
transforms the way a
user works, plays,
learns and connects.

In 2009, Sixth Sense, a wearable device that was invented by an MIT Student, Pranav Mistry
was presented to the world in a Ted Talk. It transforms the way AR is used in everyday life. The
video of Pranav Mistry’s TED talk is attached here for your reference. The 15 min video will
provide you with a futuristic insight of how AR can work in everyday life.
Recently, due to the pandemic a popular Van Gogh Exhibition to be held in Toronto was on the
brink of getting cancelled. However, thanks to the excellent presence of mind of one of the
organizers and AR, the same was converted into a drive in exhibit! Visitors can now immerse
themselves into each brushstroke of the sunny landscapes, night scenes as well as portraits that
was painted by Vincent Van Gogh himself. It is an astonishing as well as a breath taking
experience for an individual. Such is the power of AR.

SOCIAL BOTS

Social media bots are automated software or programs used to engage in social media platforms.
Social bots can interact with humans and answer their questions online without getting tired.
They can sound very human but in reality they are just automated accounts which are controlled
by codes. Social bots are algorithms and pieces software which uses artificial intelligence to
carry out conversations with humans and automate tasks, the purpose being, assisting humans.
They are very useful for businesses as they help building strong customer relationships by
delivering target content, helping them with their queries and by anticipating user reactions.
Businesses benefit a lot from these social bots as depending on the niche and platform they are
used on, they can be programmed to perform various tasks like sending messages, answering
calls, liking posts, helping users find information online.

The aim of artificial intelligence and social media bots in the field of online marketing is not to
fully replace human-to - human interactions, but to help business owners and marketers in more
efficient consumer interactions. Many sectors like, retail, travel, entertainment, education, etc.
use social bots as assistants.

All this may sound but using of social bots is not completely risk free. Poorly programmed social
bots can sometimes do more damage than good as they can confuse users and waste their time
instead of helping them. One thing we should remember that no matter how efficient these bots
are, these bots cannot understand context like humans do. Bots can also sometimes participate
in spreading fake news and the effects of it can be so intense that it can influence the general
perception of a political or social event. Bots which are created for malicious purposes can
participate in spreading malware and can also steal data from other accounts.

Malicious social bots can be used for a lot of purposes which are as follows:

 Artificially amplifying the popularity of a person, post or movement- Sometimes we see

social media accounts with a huge number of followers and we may think of that person as
influential which might not be the case always as bots are used to increase the number of
followers. These follower bots are bought and sold in the black market.
 Influencing elections- A study by First Monday, found that around 400,000 social media
bots created as much as 20% of political discussion on social media on the day before the
2016 U.S. presidential election.
 Manipulation of financial markets- These bots are used to also manipulate financial markets
by spreading bad news about and corporation which in turn would affect the company’s
reputation and it’s stock prices.
 Phishing attacks- Fake followers of social media and social interaction will help reassure a
victim that he can trust their scammer.
 Spreading spam- Social networking bots are also used for purposes of illegal advertisement
by spamming the social web with links to commercial websites.

During the US 2018 elections, a team led by computer scientist Emilio Ferrara analysed bot
activity compared to bot activity during the US 2016 elections. They analysed about 250,000
active social media users who addressed both the 2016 and 2018 US elections and found more
than 30,000 bots. Throughout 2016 they found bots based mainly on retweets and large numbers
of tweets about the same post. When online human social interaction has grown, however, so
have bots. Just like humans were less likely to retweet as much as they did in 2016 during the
2018 election season, bots were less likely to post the same messages in high volume.

Considering all the positive and negative aspects of social bots and taking note of all the ideas
presented in the article we can say that social bots are going to be a very influential part of the
social media platform in the near future. The use of it is only going to increase in the upcoming
future and we cannot deny the fact that as much as it’s going to help businesses it is also going
to be used for malicious purposes but again that is the thing with technology, it’s a boon as well
as a curse. Just looking at the negative aspects of it, we cannot overlook all the benefits
businesses and corporations can derive from it. In conclusion, use of AI and social bots cannot
be avoided but at the same time techies need to come up with solutions for privacy issues and
malware.

INTEGRATING HAPTICS INTO MEDIA CONTENT

Social media is growing with a fast pace and with it the ways of using it is changing and
evolving. Haptics are something that have been developed back in the 1970’s for gaming when
if a player makes a mistake the controller vibrates which notifies the player. Although haptics
in social media is something new as when a person likes a certain post a sound or vibration is
made. For example, when liking a post on Facebook it releases a sound and a slight vibration,
also there is more than liking a person can do on social media like giving a sad, funny, angry
type of reaction and all of the reactions give out a sound and vibration which makes the user feel
pleasant. When a consuming media a consumer gets more emotionally attached to the post if the
consumer can react to it in different ways and get a different sound or feel on every action made.
A media consumer may prefer a haptic in response than no response at all as haptic also tells if
the action is completed or not. So, if a user likes something on social media and a sound is made
that will make the user feel pleased that the action has been accomplished.

Haptics in media is in its early stages but it is a feature that is turning out to be endeared by the
users to a great extent. As per the article haptic technology is predicted to be a $20 billon industry
by 2022. It is no surprise that media content is up to get a lot of new haptic technology involved
in the daily life of a media consumer.

SOCIAL MEDIA AS A POLITICAL TOOL

Around 42.2% of the world’s population uses social media. This means that social media is rich
not only in terms of information but it is also in terms of the number of people who are active
social media users. From ex-president Barak Obama to the current president Donald Trump have
used social media to engage with their supporters or gather more supporters. It is a powerful tool
to influence more number of people as they use social media not only connect themselves with
their friends and family members but also build a network of people with similar thoughts and
ideals. Hence social media is increasingly divided between various groups where people
belonging to the same group have similar likes and dislikes also known as echo-chamber.

Several politicians use social media as a tool to connect with people and it is going to be used
extensively in the immediate future. The advantage is that it is highly beneficial to help
politicians gain insight on how effective certain policies are or may even provide them with a
glimpse of the inherent need for newer policies or bring a transformation that benefits the
citizens of the state. Many politicians also use such platforms to share workshops with their
fellow party members, a popular example being Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio – Cortez.
The bane of social media is certain governments or politicians may use it to promote their selfish
ideals, nationalism so that they can distract people from focusing on the sensitive topics or topics
of actual concern. Example, Chinese government using social media to promote nationalism and
distract users from focusing on more sensitive topics. Politicians and several governments may
use social media to spread false rumors or fake news also known as “Deep Fake”. Such methods
can fool a lot of people and the misinformation can leave an everlasting impact in the minds of
its readers. This can have a drastic effect in real life decisions taken by this people, e.g. there
was a lot of fake news during the presidential election campaign against the presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton. This had a huge impact on her poll numbers and eventually she was
beaten by the now President Donald Trump.

Any fake news or “Deep Fake” is further promoted by the polarized groups or echo-chambers.
People using social media hardly do any fact check and quickly spread news that is not real in
the first place. Once the news is taken down immediately it can be prevented from spreading
further but once it is shared, the cycle continues and it becomes difficult to then control the
spread of misinformation. According to research when one group is exposed to the views of
other group, the polarization increases. Each group tries to promote its own belief and it is a
huge challenge for policy makers and social media platforms to control the spread of or stop the
spread of “fake news” without curbing the freedom of speech of people using these platforms.

Conclusion

Social media is inevitable. There's a huge increase in the number of users of social media. People
spend various hours on using social sites. It turns out to be the most effective way of doing and
promoting the business. It provides a great opportunity to the small organizations as well. There
are three pillars of social media in the immediate future that are - omni social presence, increase
of influencers and privacy concerns. Good customer experience and providing excellent service
to them is essential for the company. Serving the online audience in the best possible way is the
key to success in ecommerce. Nowadays, there are various social media influencers, followed
by different people and have a huge impact on them. They created their credibility. The main
concern of privacy is hacking and security of personal information. Companies must ensure the
privacy of the customer or website users. People also get educated and knowledgeable
information on social media. Twitter and Facebook, usually used as a political tool. People get
an opportunity to share their views and thoughts regarding different topics. Opinions and
thoughts are also posted on Twitter and Facebook by various celebrities and politicians. It helps
to overcome the barrier of communication. It also helps to combat the isolation and loneliness.
Social media in reality, got a huge scope and opportunity in future.

References:

https://vangoghexhibit.ca/#home
https://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology?la
nguage=en#t-826333
https://computer.howstuffworks.com/augmented-reality4.htm
https://www.adobe.com/ca/insights/5-realworld-examples-of-augmented-reality-
innovation.html
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/augmented-reality
https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/en-ca/blog/grow-your-business-with-social-bots
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/bots/what-is-a-social-media-bot/
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2019/09/social-media-bots-are-becoming-more-human-
and-difficult-to-detect-study-shows/ (By E&T editorial staff, Published Friday, September 6,
2019)