Internet users are growing continuously. They use internet for all necessary as it offers various facilities that can make life easier. It then affects to the growth of social media.

Social media itself, as a part of internet, has brought many changes in social community. It has become a mediator for people to socialize in internet. Since the beginning of the emergence of social media – in the early of 2000, it has solved some problems of the distance and time in doing interaction between people. Let say a momentous event in Singapore can easily known by Indonesian people through twitter, or friends we have never met for years can we found on facebook.

Over the times, media used in doing socialization also keeps getting improvement. People increasingly facilitated by the new invention in social media technology. Before, doing interaction with people is only one feature that we could obtain from social media, yet currently people make use of it to meet nearly all of their needs.

Social media gives business communities wider space to share some information globally. They use it to build the networking and grab their market through their social media accounts, for instance facebook, twitter, linkedin, Instagram, and so on. Potential consumers in social media, let say in facebook, have made business community are interested in getting involved deeper. The involvement is not only to increase the sale, but also to capture what they comment about the product. If then the consumer survey only obtained by taking some consumers to a room given several questions about the product, now, it can be done by monitoring social media.

Based on the report of socialbakers.com, facebook is social media with biggest amount of fans in Indonesia. It means that facebook is a potential and profitable market for business community. We can do a research to publish the new business product on facebook timeline, see who give ‘like’, comment and any reaction. This makes businessmen then using internet facilities to advertise their products. Not only on facebook – as one of social media with a huge number of users, but also twitter, instagram, blog, kaskus, etc. Meantime, consumers are surfing the internet to find out what they needs.

For businessmen, advertising their products in social media can be also an alternative way in expanding business. There is no border to grab the consumers from all over Indonesia, even from out of country by doing online marketing in social media. In fact today, infrastructure of the internet supports the growth of social media users in Indonesia. The internet cost is inexpensive while travelling cost between islands is relatively high.

As a phenomenon, many think that there will be period where social media for business ends. In spite of it, currently social media keep on its position as a media for getting socialization at once as business online media. As a businessman, it absolutely has been a challenge for taking maximum benefit from social media to the importance of business community.

In the end, as a connectivity media, basically social media takes some roles in business community. Also, it is about to be one of marketing tools. The fact online marketing in social media results more market and revenue than offline marketing.

Written by:
Sofie Riana (English Solution)