The development of social media’s role and its impact in the marketing field has brought numerous transformations, challenges, and new opportunities for the industrial sector. This condition encourages the Management Study Program, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta, to discuss ‘Global and Digital Marketplaces in Social Media Landscape: Challenges and Opportunities for Firms’ in a recent Visiting Professor Lecture series as part of the Kompetisi Kampus Merdeka Program (PKKM) 2022. The virtual agenda on November 3rd, 2022, became the first part of the Guest Lecture Marketing Management and was attended by 100 participants through the Zoom Cloud Meeting.

Attending the event virtually as the main speaker was Dr. Chandana Hewege from Swinburne Business School, Australia. Dr. Hewege opened his material with the definition of a marketplace and the digital business condition after the Covid-19 pandemic. According to him, there is considerable development of the digital business that will stay relevant after the pandemic end, such as e-commerce. “There are considerable virtual or digital activities that will remain after the pandemic. Currently, the data accumulated in social media and other digital applications are huge, thus, it can be useful to predict the market condition,” explains Dr. Hewege.

Further, he explains that the biggest challenge faced by marketing experts recently is the need to manage both physical and virtual stores harmoniously. Therefore, both services and products offered virtually can be delivered and received by customers. This condition is in line with the consumer demand that is now more focused on experiences, which will encourage producers to transform their business from multichannel to omnichannel, where a company needs to integrate all available marketing channels. “Customers now are more powerful than before. Especially with the existence of social media as a global catalyst, companies need to build an online community and must be present in every online discussion to maintain product image. It is no longer enough to own social media account, but they must be involved in the ongoing discussion,” he explained.

Regarding this development, Dr. Hewege explains that currently, a firm’s value is not only measured from a monetary aspect but also from the social capital aspect. This concept refers to the condition where a firm attracts plenty of customers to buy or use the product offered by the firm. A simple example of social capital is a web page visited by countless people will have a higher value compared to a web page rarely visited by people. “You as a marketer can no longer only focus on growing customer groups. You need to establish a community, you will need authenticity in your communication approach with the community members or new customers. You also need to be aware of consumer activism, where experience or opinion shared by one consumer in social media can affect other consumers.”

The visiting lecture continues with an interactive question-and-answer session after the material is presented. “Thank you, I hope you can use this material to grow better in the future,” hopes Dr. Hewege concluding the discussion session.