When it first came about, social media was thought of as a purely personal thing. You could have your Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, whatever it was, but it wasn't intended to be seen by anyone but the people closest to you. I remember being thirteen years old with a Myspace for the first time, and I felt like I had unlocked a whole new world of limitless social potential. I felt I could express myself in whatever way I liked without fear of judgement or punishment from parents, teachers, relatives, or anyone else. But as I grew up and social media evolved, all of this has changed. I am now friends with my 70 year-old aunts on Facebook. My profiles are now on the radar when it comes to job searches. And a parent or professor or boss could easily google my name and find my online presence in a few clicks. Now I realize how important it is to be just as careful online as I would be in real life, if not even more so. Social media is no longer just for small, close friend circles. It's now for the entire world.
Being that the majority of my education has been in the business field, I want to focus on how social media has affected this area in particular. Just like with parents and older generations, business were slow to get involved with social media in it's early days. But now, they're seen as out of touch if they don't have profiles across several platforms. It's almost mandatory now for companies to have Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages, and ones without supporting Instagram, Pinterest, and Linkedin pages, just to name a few, are fighting an uphill battle. According to Search Engine Watch, who researched Fortune 500 social media usage in 2013, 77% of the companies have Facebook, 73% have Twitter, and 69% have YouTube. Additionally, 35% have Google+, 34% have a blog, and 9% have Pinterest, Instagram and Foursquare (Slegg). For a reference point, only 20% of Fortune 500 companies had a Twitter account in 2009 (Bennett). But big businesses aren't the only ones bullish on social media nowadays. A 2014 Linkedin study found that 81% of small businesses are active on social media, although specific site use wasn't included (Gravel).
It's clear that social is becoming more important for businesses, but just having an account is no longer enough; it's all about how you use it. Now that so much of the world is social media savvy, businesses have had to learn the most effective ways to use these new platforms to reach both their core consumers as well as new ones. It's clear that one of the easiest and most effective business functions social media can handle is marketing. Social media is a marketing machine, as anyone who follows your profile will automatically see your posts on their timelines, giving companies a surefire way to get in front of consumers eyes. Rightfully so, 93% of businesses that use social media use it for marketing (Qualman). Going hand-in-hand with marketing is promotion and advertising, both of which are comparably easy to do on social media. Social media promotions provide an easy way to engage consumers, and social media advertising is one of the surest ways to ensure your message gets seen by target consumers, given all of the wonderful demographic and psychographic filters social media sites provide. Outside of marketing purposes, social media is a useful tool for lead generation and can help companies get a feel for current trends, both in the industry and on a larger scale.
Though using social media for consumer engagement in the form of marketing, promotion, advertising is a no-brainer, there are right ways and wrong ways to do it. In my best practices post, I outlined some of the best ways to use Twitter and Instagram, but some of these practices can also be applied to other platforms. Some of the key considerations I touched on that could be applied on a broader scale are:
- Post several times daily. A profile is of no use if it isn't continuosly posting new, engaging content.
- Make use of multimedia. Varying posts in the form of text, picture, video, gifs, etc. add variety and appeal.
- Use a genuine voice and display brand values. Staying true to your brand on social media is a must, as it gives your business credibility and respect.
- Don't over-sell yourself. Promoting and marketing to consumers is great, but not every post should be "selling" something, or even talking about the brand. Be relatable and have a two-way conversation with your consumers.
- Capitalize on trends and use them as avenues to interact with your brand specifically.
By taking note of these practices, businesses that use social media can optimize the effectiveness of their operations. Though they are by no means absolute and all-encompassing, they give a general baseline of what to do to make sure your company is getting the most out of social media usage.
All in all, social media has become of incredible importance for modern businesses. No longer are Facebook and Twitter (and everyone else) solely personal platforms. They now connect people and organizations on a global level and have completely changed the way we all communicate. Making use of them is no longer suggested; it's required. Knowing what you want out of social media and applying the best practices should help any business have success in this still-emerging, and world changing media platform.
References:
Bennett, Shea. "The Social Media Statistics Of Fortune 500 Companies." AllTwitter. Media Bistro, 30 Mar. 2012. Web. 12 May 2014.
Grazel, Jennifer. "Social Media: A Hotbed For SMB Growth and Fertile Ground for Financial Services Prospects." Linkedin Marketing Solutions. Linkedin, 13 Feb. 2014. Web. 12 May 2014.
Qualman, Erik. "Social Media Revolution 3 (4:15 Version via Erik Qualman)." YouTube. YouTube, 22 June 2011. Web. 12 May 2014.
Slegg, Jennifer. "Fortune 500 Social Media: 77% Active on Twitter; 70% on Facebook." Search Engine Watch. N.p., 25 July 2013. Web. 12 May 2014.
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