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"Social Networking accounts for one of every six minutes spent on-line. In addition, Facebook has more than 500 million active users, 50% of those active users log on to Facebook on any given day, and has an average of 130 friends in their network. More importantly, Facebook users spend an average of 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook" (Facebook Statistics, 2011)
What could this potentially mean for your business? Well it means alot! All of those users, have the potential to become customers of your product, and or services, which equals business growth. More importantly, it gives businesses a wonderful opportunity to respond to the call of community, which is what people really crave in this technological age! Today's customer's crave acknowledgement from the brands they love. People want to know, and feel through the essence of communication that a brand cares about what they think, hence doing whatever it takes to communicate with them.
Organizations have many wonderful things to gain by paying attention to their audience. One benefit for sure is that organizations have the potentiality to accelerate their organizations authority factor in their industry, while in the same breath gaining authority with their audience. In essence, this is where it matters most. As a customer, I have more appreciation for a business that cares about my voice, and is willing to cater to the needs of the personal elements of my everyday life that are related to their product, and or services. With the invention of social media and the internet this is possible now more than ever before.
One of the most glorious aspects of social media is that it allows anyone to have a conversation with more than one person at a time. More importantly, social media allows businesses to have a two way conversation instead a one way conversation. This changes the face of marketing, and the way organizations conduct business. Even more relevant, it allows a connection that reaches beyond their normal network of individuals, imagine the potential! For instance, If you have a solid network of 130 individuals not only are those individuals viewing your content, but the individuals with-in their networks have access to your brand content. Which means that the numbers of viewers experiencing your content can double, and or triple in number. The reality is that with careful planning, and observation of these networks, organizations can gain very valuable social capital that has the potential to grow their business, and to create larger communities that rally behind what your organization represents.
Social Media Facts to Think About:
As of June 2011, Twitter has 175 million registered users.
For Facebook, users accessing the websites through mobile devices now tops 200 million! An increase of 200% in a 12 month period.
There is more Youtube video content uploaded in a 60 day period than the three major U.S. television networks created in a 60 year period. The average Youtube user spends an average of 15 to 25 minutes a day on Youtube.
Mashable, stated "As of February 2011, YouTube has 490 million unique users worldwide per month, who rack up an estimated 92 billion page views each month. We spend around 2.9 billion hours on YouTube in a month — over 325,000 years. And those stats are just from the main YouTube website — they don’t incorporate embedded videos or video watched on mobile devices"
"Social media-related YouTube stats are just as impressive. YouTube says that on average there are more than 400 tweets per minute containing a YouTube link. Meanwhile, over on Facebook over 150 years worth of YouTube videos are watched every single day." (Mashable, Amy-Mae Elliot, 2011)
"Quite frankly, in order for organizations, and small businesses to succeed in their goals for growth, social media is a must. The website, Web Devils stated in the article, " Why Small Businesses Will See Benefit's From Social Media" (June, 2011) http://webdevils.biz/small-businesses-benefits-social-media:
"Small businesses must have a presence on social media.
Yes, I said must. Not maybe, or someday, but right now.
Maybe you’ve heard this, but you’re not sure where to start. Or maybe you created some accounts but haven’t really done anything with them. Or maybe you’re doubting whether it really can work for your business."
Benefits For Small Business:
1.The Ability To Gain Exposure: Due to small businesses and their limited resources social media is very cost effective, hence not draining the pockets of businesses with limited resources.
2.The Ability To Gain Brand Ambassadors: Social media allows businesses to create community around their particular product, and or services due to observing, listening and connecting genuinely with their particular niche group. As a result, businesses have the potential to gain brand ambassadors for their particular brand. Brand ambassadors are powerful tools especially if they have large networks. With their powerful social influence, they have the ability to engage a wider range of individuals that are outside of a businesses network. Brand ambassadors are key component's in business's building their brands because they have high social capital, and that leads to influencing others in their networks.
3. The Ability To Stay Competitive in Your Market Niche: Through the advent of technological advances, and social media businesses have been allowed to listen to conversations that were not privy to them before the internet. This enables one to hear, and to observe not just potential customer's, and to create closer relationships with existing customer's, but it allows one to hear their competition's conversation. By observing your competitor's, one can capitalize in areas that their competitor's are not.
4. Damage Control: Because social media allows individuals to hear conversations that were not privy to them before social media, businesses can now reach out in a timely fashion before things take a turn that is not to be desired. Their are many brands who chose to ignore the power of social media in the business space. Unfortunately, some organizations have had to paid a heavy price. Here are some examples: https://crisiscomm.wordpress.com/2009/01/28/motrin-moms-case-stud/. http://www.kenvarga.com/news/dominos-pizza-sneezing-employees-and-your-reputation/ Social media gives businesses the ability to respond, and quickly.
Other Ways A Business Can Benefit From Social Media:
- Improve Customer Service
- Improve Search Engine Rankings
- Drive Traffic to Your Website
- Builds Awareness About a Particular Product, and Or New Service
With all of the benefits of social media for business, the question remains: Would you rather be talking to one person about your business? Or thousands?
Resource on small business case studies
http://www.hubspot.com/Portals/53/docs/small-business-social-media-ebook-hubspot.pdf
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