1. Social networks are the City Hall of the 21st century.
People don’t meet like they used to. Sure, we all still attend church and town hall meetings and our kids’ teacher conferences, but more and more people are congregating online. Did you know that according to iStrategyLabs, Facebook’s US user base grew by 144.9% in 2009? Some estimates put all Facebook activity worldwide at up to 20% of all Internet traffic!
Facebook, and increasingly Twitter, are the places where people will find out what’s going on in the lives of their friends and family. Also, with the explosion of fan pages, users are looking for news about companies, organizations and causes they support.
Friends and family meet regularly on Facebook. Colleagues and like-minded people use Twitter to share ideas throughout the day. Professionals are connecting on LinkedIn. Flickr and YouTube broadcast photos and videos to the world forever. And blogs are maintained on topics as varied as professional soccer refereeing and crochet. All of this happens 24 hours a day, every day of every year. Is your business connecting with people where they are right now?
2. Yours is a small business.
You own a small business, perhaps a local party store or an independent insurance agency. Social media is intriguing, but you can’t see the benefit for a company your size. Let’s say you have a small party supply store. You check the Facebook fan page of the largest drugstore chain. They have more than 433,000 fans. Do you have 433,000 customers?
Or let’s say you are an insurance agent. After spending some time on a national insurer’s Facebook fan page, she discovers that she is joining more than 16,600 people. Do you have 16,600 customers?
Small businesses need revenue streams more than ever. A profitable way to generate business is through social media marketing. People who become your fans and regularly see what you post on your fan page are more likely to do business with you than with a larger company with whom they may not share a connection.
Social media doesn’t have to be a daily chore, but it certainly should be something you use on a weekly basis. A small business may post community news, events in the lives of staff members and their families, cross promotions with other local businesses, and content related to their products or services.
3. Yours is a great company.
You are president of business development for a large, world-renowned company. The board of directors has asked you to find new ways to connect with potential customers. Let’s go back to the example of drugstore chains. The number of fans is staggering at 433,000 when you consider the number of fans Competitor #1 has (5,967) and that Competitor #2’s page (88 fans) was apparently created by someone outside the company . If you are developing business for competitors, do you feel there is an urgency to use social media effectively?
Social networks are essential for large companies of the 21st century. Modern consumers are demanding and smart. They want companies to be responsive and transparent. Social media allows your business to listen and talk to customers, address their concerns, and generate positive sentiment about your brand.
4. Their customer base is mostly local.
Your company is successful locally; sustains its business and has reported moderate growth for several years. But lately he has wanted to push the business to a broader level.
Social media is a place to go “remote” without leaving home. The beauty of platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter is that you can reach a global audience from anywhere. These sites will allow your business to be seen and known by thousands upon thousands of people who would otherwise never know it exists.
Your company can promote your products and/or services to these new potential customers. You can let them know of your past successes and current special offers. You can easily customize orders without spending time on the phone or meeting in person. Social media will introduce you to new people and serve them more efficiently.
Also, local support will grow for your business as long as you focus some of the content on items of local interest. Producing social media content about civic news, school events, community fundraisers and the like will keep your base loyal and growing.
5. Their customer base is mostly remote.
Your company mainly sells to customers in remote locations. You attract people primarily through your website. Business is good, but hasn’t made much progress with local customers. Perhaps you are a new business in a region that has long been loyal to a competitor. Social media is one way to bridge this gap. Your company may simply suffer from a lack of exposure. A strong presence on social networking sites is proof to potential customers that you are interested in their ideas and responsive to their concerns. These “open conversation” platforms can showcase your business as part of a community of mutual support.
6. Your friends (and their friends) are your best advocates.
Who are you more likely to trust when they tell you that you should buy a car from a particular dealership, someone you just met on the street or your friend of 20 years? We hope you have chosen the latter. If so, you are like the 99% of people in this world who take their friends at their word because they share a common past and have trusted them in other situations.
A business needs friends, followers, or followers (depending on the social media platform). You don’t have to fear that you’re breaking a social contract with friends, as long as your social media is about your customers, their needs, and the conversations driven by them. Strangers don’t want to be “sold” anything and neither do your friends.
Social media is about conversation, community, and relationships. Building strong relationships doesn’t mean you can’t promote your business, but it does mean you should listen more than you talk.
7. Money goes where people go.
You cannot afford not to participate. The perception of social networks is that it is for young people. Sure, Facebook and MySpace started out as platforms for college and high school students. However, according to iStrategy Labs, Facebook users aged 35 and over now make up 30% of the total user base. Furthermore, in 2009, users aged 55 and over grew by a staggering 922.7%. In fact, every demographic grew in 2009 except for college users.
So everyone and their siblings are using Facebook and other social media platforms. Grandmas are sharing photos of their grandchildren on Flickr. Car dealerships are bringing the showroom into the customer’s home with car videos on YouTube. And the local coffee shop is “linked” with a new coffee bean distributor with lower shipping costs. People are taking their lives and their money into these virtual worlds. Are you there to meet them?
starting yesterday
Social media, while not ubiquitous to business, is by no means still a mystery. There are thousands of companies of all sizes that “get it”. Is yours one of them? If so, that’s great and we’d love to share ideas with you. If not, how will you catch up? Where do you start?
Facebook is the proverbial tip of the social media iceberg. The best advice we have is: Pick one to three platforms and commit to producing content on each one consistently. If we had to suggest three, we would probably choose Facebook, LinkedIn, and a company blog. However, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and many other sites have their merits. Depending on your size, time constraints, and budget, you may want to hire an outside agency to handle your social media content. Whichever path you choose, we welcome you to the conversation.
iStrategyLabs is a social media solutions company. His Facebook research can be found by searching for his name in a Google search.
