How can social media help your Business?

Social Media for Business

Social Media is really about online social conversation from any content generated by people using different tools or media. They are not one to one or one to many conversation but many to many. It is a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.
The stake holders involved in such conversation can be your customers, your donors, your volunteers, your employees, your investors, your critics, your fans, your competition or anyone who has internet access and has an opinion

The conversation isn’t organized or controlled but organic and complex, speaking in a human voice. Social media is not a strategy or a tactic – it’s simply a channel. Social media has great influence in buying decisions of consumers.

According to a research by Digital Influence Group, 87% trust a friend’s recommendation over critic’s review. Social media sites are the fastest-growing category on the web, doubling their traffic over the last year

Social media can help you in all stages of marketing, self-promotion, public relations, and customer service:
i. In conclusion, Social media is practical in the following ways:
i. Learn what people are saying about you
ii. Create buzz for events & campaigns
iii. Increase brand exposure
iv. Identify and recruit influencers to spread your message
v. Find new opportunities and customers
vi. Support your products and services
vii. Improve your search engine visibility
viii. Gain competitive intelligence
ix. Get your message out fast
x. Retain clients by establishing a personal relationship
xi. Be an industry leader – not a follower
 
Interesting statistics of Social Media today.

a. 2.5 million on Facebook in Singapore
b. 500 years to finish watching all video on Youtube today
c. 1 out of 8 couples married in American met on social media
d. There are 5 billion pictures on Flickr, half than half of the world’s population
e. 96% of Gen Y have joined a social media
f. Facebook have overtaken Google for weekly traffic
g. Social media has overtaken pornography as the 1st activity on web
h. It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million users, TV took 13 years and internet took 4 years, and IPOD took only 3 years.
i. If Facebook is a country today, its membership would have been the 3rd largest country today behind China and India, America is 4th.
j. Businesses do not really have to choice whether they should be on social media, the question is How Well they should be doing it?
k. 80% of the companies have used social media for recruitment
l. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 years old FEMALE
m. While you are listening to Positive Business Minute, another 25 hours of videos would have been uploaded to Youtube
n. Wikipedia has over 15 million articles, 78% of these are not even in English.
o. There are 200 million blogs in the world right now.34% of them post their opinion on products and services. So what are they saying about your brand?
p. Even traditional mass media are on Facebook and Twitter engaging their fans through feedback and discussions.
q. In summary, in social media, we do not need to look for products and services; they will come and find us.