With the rapid increase in social networking forums such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and FourSquare never before has networking had such an enormous impact on business.
It has always been a useful marketing resource to establish and encourage word-of-mouth referrals. Now it is an integral part of all business marketing, growth strategies and market perception.
Pre social media networking days, networking was about making contacts, maintaining relationships and paying it forward; today social media has revolutionised that and it is about all of these existing elements plus maintaining your public persona and having ‘your finger on the pulse’ with what your customers really want.
Here are a couple of articles to assist you in understanding more about social media and your business
Running an Offline Business in an Online World
With technology moving so fast today attracting and retaining customers has become a creative art form. Today’s customer is savvy, well researched and comparative. Most will Google before making a purchasing decision so that they become informed on what to expect when it comes to customer service, price and product/service delivery.
Today’s business owner now needs to really understand the implications of running an offline business in a savvy online world. Here are five things you need to know:
1. The Online world cannot be ignored by offline business today.
Quite simply if your offline business does not have a strong online presence (website, social media, Google places, directory listings) you are placing your business at a distinct disadvantage. If today’s savvy customer is on Google looking for the types of products and services that you offer and you are not there, then you are just not in with a chance at all. Take action now and make sure that you have a solid online presence.
2. The traditional marketing rules still apply.
When positioning our business to attract customers through our online marketing efforts we need to still know who we are targeting, what our key messages are, what the benefits to the customer are and importantly what our unique point of difference is. Our online messages need to be in alignment with our offline messages and consistency needs to flow through our strategies.
3. Regardless of online or offline you still need to cater to all styles of communicators.
You still need to cater to the different ways in which a person receives information. Any marketing messages need to be peppered with a balance of visual, auditory and kinesthetic engagement. For example a website heavy with text content and no images is likely to disengage a large portion of your customers.
4. You need to be informed and have a strategy.
Staying up to date with the ever evolving online engagement is a big task to master with the day to day activities of running your business. However, it’s a task we all need to do, to be effective we need to employ strategies to stay informed, understand the relevance of the ‘online’ impact and take action in a timely manner so that we don’t get left behind.
5. People still buy from people they like, know and trust.
Just as you would build a trust relationship with a customer offline, you must build that trust online. Use the terminology that you would offline, replicate the things that make you successful and allow the “savvy” customer to see who you are. Remember to include a contact phone number, name/s and/or pictures of key staff on your website so that people know who they are contacting (not some faceless impersonal contact form).
Social Media: Marketing Tool or Time Waster?
Is Social Media a useful marketing tool or simply a time waster? This is a tough question for a lot of small businesses today and one I’ve been asked many times during my presentations recently. So I thought it relevant to explore in June as we near the end of the financial year and start thinking about the results of the past 12 months and looking at opportunities and trends for the next 12.
If you are in your own business here is what you need to know:
1. The hard facts
Social Media is here to stay, it is not a fad and if you think it is for teenagers and time wasters you may need to think again. The Social Media websites Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn and twitter all reside in the top 50 of the most visited sites daily in Australia according to Google (Facebook and YouTube hold positions 1 and 2 respectively, for a complete list click here). In Australia we have approx 10 Million people over the age of 18 with active Facebook accounts. 75% of these users are on the East coast of Australia. According to Facebook the average Facebook user will spend approximately 55 minutes per day on Facebook, and is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events.
The statistics from YouTube are staggering – 35 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every 60 seconds, YouTube is now the 2nd largest search engine in the world, YouTube’s demographic is 18-54 years old and more video is uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than the 3 major US networks created in 60 years! What this means for you… if you are on YouTube, it’s more than likely you will rank higher in Google or simply dominate your industry positioning you as the go to business.
LinkedIn has over 2 million members in Australia, with the most connected industries being IT (149,805), Financial Services (70,443), Accounting (49,479) and Marketing/Advertising (47,894).
Twitter has more than 600 million searches on it everyday from over 200 million users globally, 25 billion tweets were sent in 2010. One user (@shitmydadsays) has over 2.4 million followers, he simply started to tweet the funny things his dad said, now he has a New York Best Seller and his own TV show staring William Shatner! Personally I relocated my business from Sydney to the Central Coast in 2007 within 2 weeks of tweeting I had connected with and met 30 local business owners I had no previous contact with. In traditional networking terms it would have taken me six to twelve months to meet and build those same relationships with.
FourSquare is a social media application that allows users to ‘check in’ leave tips at locations – such as recommending great coffee at their local cafe. It also allows businesses to offer ‘Specials’ such as “free coffee with every cake or mention this tip and receive 10% off your next purchase”. With over 10 million users worldwide (accurate figures difficult to source for Australia) it’s a social media platform difficult to ignore particularly for those in the hospitality or retail sectors. Facebook has also introduced Facebook Places allowing their users to do the same thing.
2. The time vortex
Social Media has a way of sucking you into the lost vortex of time wasting, if you intend on using social media for your business you need to prioritise and understand how you will use it. With “more than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month” on Facebook alone it’s easy to see where and how easily you can become distracted and waste time. I know from personal experience I have been so fascinated with the content and links I’ve read, learnt from and consumed time does slip by very quickly. In my business I have found that my social media activities must be reasonably aligned with dollar productivity during business hours.
If you are prone to procrastination you are going to need a solid social media plan and disciplined approach to your social media activities. I have many clients that schedule time in their diary for social media activity. Many large organisations now employ people to specifically watch the social media platforms for comments so they can respond immediately to complaints, ideas, suggestions and what their customers really want. Many small businesses set up tools so they can monitor what their customers are saying and doing so they can be responsive.
Social media can be a time waster in the hands of the person that allows that to happen. How you manage your social media activities and time really is up to you. My tip… get educated about how it can work for your business and find a way like any other marketing activity to make it work for you.
3. What action do you need to take?
Well that depends… What do you want to achieve from your marketing efforts? Which platforms are your customers engaged in? What resources can you invest? (time, people and money) How do you want to engage with your customers? How do you want your business to be perceived?
As I mentioned earlier, with tools such as Twitter, Facebook places and Four Square customer experiences are now instantly available to the world and if you are not engaged in any of these forums how will you ever know what your customers are saying or what they really want?
For my ten cents worth, I believe each business at a minimum must have a Facebook Business Page and a YouTube channel. If nothing else these will assist with your Google rankings and show your customers that you are current, innovative and listening.
With the phenomenal growth of these social media platforms it’s time for all businesses to take a reality check and see how they will compete and position themselves in their respective markets. Really it all comes down to one simple marketing question… Where are your customers and how are they consuming their information?
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