Social Media
Every day millions of people go online to follow, friend, fan, feed, find, burn, share, chat, text, review, comment, upload, download, webcast, create, collaborate, communicate, crowdsource, and simply socialize with the help of a wide range of social media platforms:
- Social networks
- Blogs
- Mircroblogs
- Social bookmarks
- Content aggregators
- Media sharing sites
- And many, many more
Social media is a true paradigm shift where control has transitioned from networks, publishing houses, and the like to everyday people. And it seems that everyday people like to have control, as adoption of social media has been nothing short of phenomenal:
- 2/3rds of the global Internet population visit social networking sites [1]
- Visiting social network sites is the fourth most popular online activity – ahead of personal email [2]
- Time spent on social networks is growing at 3 times the overall internet rate – accounting for 10% of all online time [3]
The success of the most popular social media applications has also been nothing short of phenomenal – especially considering social media is still in its infancy:
- Facebook has over 300 million users
- YouTube videos get more than 1.2 billion views per day
- Flickr has more than 3.6 billion pictures in its archive
- Twitter users post an average of 3 million Tweets every day
- Ipod application downloads top 1 billion per month
The size and accelerated growth of many social media sites (Facebook surged from 150 million users in January 2009 to 300 million users in September 2009) means there are many newcomers to social media sites every day, eager to engage and eager to be engaged. Some of them are your customers, some of their are your competitor’s customers, and some of them are your competitors.
This is your chance to connect with people you may never have been able to connect with otherwise – locally and globally – and engage with people you’re also connected with in a new and exciting way.
Get ahead of the curve and get involved now.
People Want Your Business to Participate
The people who populate social media sites have clear views on whether or not businesses should engage in social media:
- 93% of social media users believe a company should have a presence in social media [4]
- 85% of social media users believe that a company should go further than just having a presence on social sites and should interact with its customers [5]
In light of the fact that so many people go out of their way and even spend money in order to block uninvited commercial advances – Do Not Call Registries, SPAM software, ad-blocking technology, and commercial-skipping on recorded television, to name a few of the ways people try to avoid ads – don’t you think that if there is a medium where people are actually welcoming businesses to join them that you should take them up on their invitations?
After all, the customer is always right.
Key Business Applications of Social Media
The most common ways businesses are leveraging social media for commercial purposes are among the most important to the success of your business:
- Market research
- Public relations
- New product development and launches
- Brand awareness
- Customer service
- Loyalty building
- Networking
- Customer acquisition
One of the benefits of adopting a social media early is that you will gain an edge over your competition because you will be involved before them – and building a community of followers, fans, and friends made up of your customers as well as theirs.
Five Steps to Social Media Success
If you dive into social media without a strategy, you’re destined to make mistakes and expose yourself to the possibility of becoming unwelcome – it is easy to do – and losing out on what could have been a massive opportunity for your business. The most common mistake people and businesses make in social media – by far – is that they treat it like an other advertising medium. It isn’t. In fact, the whole reason that social media can work for your business is that it leverages off of three factors that – when present – make doing business easy: relationships, trust, and word-of-mouth.
Make sure you make it easy on yourself by following the five steps below:
- Strategize – analyze your target markets; review key competitors’ positions in social media; choose the best social media channels for your business; establish or refine your “personal brand;” and establish engagement protocol that will ensure communities embrace you quickly
- Engage – upload new or refined profiles to chosen core social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Digg, SumbleUpon, etc, as well as chosen niche social media sites; listen/monitor the buzz and conversations; begin to create and/or source and share video, audio, written, and other content; begin to engage in conversations
- Expand – leverage social media productivity tools to initiate and rapidly grow followers, friends, and fans; investigate the buzz about your brand, your competitors, and your industry; begin to invite followers, friends, and fans to channels and events outside of the channels where you commonly interact
- Analyze – check standard key performance indicators (traffic, referral source, rank, time on site, bounce rate, page views, conversions) for signs of progress; review post-event results and solicit feedback from attendees
- Optimize – use the lessons learned from the analysis to improve your strategy and get better results
The opportunity is there – and it’s a big one. It’s your’s for the taking or to be wasted. Start “getting social” now and reap the rewards that come from early adoption of a new media where there is very little competition.
Contact me for more information or for help with your marketing efforts.
[1] Nielsen, Global Faces and Networked Places 2009
[2] Nielsen, Global Faces and Networked Places 2009
[3] Nielsen, Global Faces and Networked Places 2009
[4] Cone, Business in Social Media Study 2008
[5] Cone, Business in Social Media Study 2008
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Let’s Get Social
