Impact of Social Media on Future of Shipping

With the world now at the fingertips of social media users, how does one in such a staid industry as cargo containers and global shipping get in on it? Social media is quickly becoming a tool for businesses to network with suppliers, customers, and future contracts. Cargo containers come in all sizes from steel boxes, to train cars, to holdings on ports and ships. They are termed “payloads” for a reason, as huge shipping magnets  ship these through a complex and often misunderstood structured system by transportation ships to the buyers they term as “users.”

Shipping containers are used for over 90% of all finished goods for a grand total of over 4 trillion-per-year influx of trade into our world economy. How can we use the everyday social aspect of networking media in one of the biggest money making industries of current history? Is it possible to use simple social media to impact our world and help the environment? How can we do it without increasing the pull on the world’s resources or making a bigger environmental impact in a efficient way?

With Facebook, you could use the device of “liking” to track buyer’s decisions. Buyers can dictate what they like and market research can be gathered this way. Profiles can be used to test the age demographics and socio-economical demographics of the person who took the time to click “like” as a way of profiling the profiles and marketing to that sector of society. Categories can be set up so buyers can use it in several genres. Marketing retailers can build their inventory in a direction according to this collection information and it would be considerably cheaper than what a usual campaign would cost without an excess of product, therefore reducing unwanted product and the carbon footprint it would leave.

It could go further and have the individual products or services be able to be “friended” and it would be a more accurate representation than nameless print ads that may or may not reach the target audience. Information can be provided through the products and services pages and room for inquires, suggestions, or improvements can help define the product even more for a consumers needs.

With such as large percentage of the population on social media sites daily, customers are more highly involved than ever with new interaction of businesses and customers. Facebook has over 400 million users, so any visibility can boost a company astronomically in lagging sales. This is an ideal medium for advertising as the investment is low and the potential is endless in sharing interaction scenarios that were possible before with just print campaigns. The interaction with customers has a wealth of possibilities to get feedback directly from customers and have them shape products to their needs. It can be as direct link for shipping companies to customize their services to a whole new generation. The average age of a Facebook user is 30, and more often than not, the buyer of the family’s products. To be able to reach out and conduct an interaction from your service to this customer directly is definitely a wave of the future to come.

Guest article written by Calvin Scott. Calvin understands nuts and bolts of technology very well and he loves to indulge himself in luxurious electronic goods. Visit his site to know more about container kopen and zeecontainer te koop.

15 thoughts on “Impact of Social Media on Future of Shipping”

  1. I think th mail delivery system really took off letters and now shipping mostly boxes around the world, the Internet marketing really caused companies like UPS to expend much.

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  2. I think any type of business can utilize social media as part of their marketing strategy and that include shipping companies. It can be use as a form of advertising wherein customers will be able to post questions and feedback on their profiles.

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  3. Not only for one purpose, but for different types of purpose, People are using social media but at this time, it is affecting the future of shipping. Through social media, shipping companies make their services better according to customer’s requirements and that will help the company to expand their sell.

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  4. with help of social media, supplier and consumers are being closer day by day and business boundaries have broken limitation of being nationally. With low cost of shipping, it became possible to ship worldwide with same product price and there is paradigm shift of shopping as well which would further increase the shipping demand.

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  5. Amazon Prime is a model that will be very successful. As they bundle the free shipping aspect with other things (video streaming, etc), it’s something that can be linked with social media for even more impact. It will be interesting to see how it develops.

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  6. Nice article.
    Social Networks are a great source of free (and paid) information about people.
    You can create a targeted ads without doing survey or any expensive thing.
    You can also build a strong relationship with your customers and easily create gift contest and several others marketing ideas

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  7. hello
    i had not think about this but after reading the complete article its quite informative for me thnx for the share and fetaured content

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  8. We are now starting the 2012, as I read this article it proves that we can do something about our small business. social media sites are now in-demand.

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  9. Good post. Social media has become a vital tool for businesses alike. The number of people that frequent social media sites is the reason why businesses should include the likes of Twitter and Facebook in their marketing schemes.

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  10. Hi Calvin,

    Great post! Wow so true! Thanks to technology things that are hard before like shipping things are now fast and easy!

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  11. A fortune 500 companies slogan for 2011 was “your customers are social”. Unfortunately, their social implementation sucked bawls, so I wont mention their name to give them free pub.

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  12. Great post! You are so right about how social media have impacted on how we buy stuffs. I have really enjoyed reading your post. Thank you for sharing

    Reply

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