We all wonder about this social media and where it is going. It's not just for college kids anymore as it originally was designed for seven years ago. Its most popular use in the past by the younger generation was to keep in touch and to see what their friends and family were up to. Social media has evolved past its adolescence stage and fully blossomed to its full potential in the Internet world. Social media is forging a new era within the businesses world.
More and more businesses are starting to utilize these social medias such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Blogs to reach out to their customers. The problem most businesses have with creating these outlets is that they fail to see the monetary value in using them. They want to visually see the return on investment (ROI). As our professor says, "money talks." This holds true for all business.
However, with the age of social media, the rules have changed dramatically and businesses are starting to realize that the true monetary value comes out of reaching out to their customers and making them apart of the business personally. Social media is creating engagement and transparency within the business and creating both new challenges and opportunities. Businesses no longer have to rely on press releases and campaigns to communicate with their customers and this is a promising future for the business world.
In this video from YouTube.com, it describes social media as a force, a revolution. It is just this.
In a current article I came across recently talks about “Four ways Social Media is Changing Busniesses,” it was published on Mashable.com. It discusses four ways that social media and businesses are flourishing together and changing the way the business world is communicating to its customers.
1. From “Trying to Sell” to “Making Connections”
For a company to change this relationship from "trying to Sell" to seeking engagement, they need to utilize Facebook and Twitter, to socially interact. They should post less about the products and services and more about the things that help their customers get to know the people and personality of the company. As a result, people will be more willing to accept the company as a comfort zone.
2. From “Large Campaigns” to “Small Acts”
By utilizing sites like Facebook and Twitter, the company basically has it’s own broadcasting network where they control the content they put out. Businesses are realizing that this is a way to save millions of dollars in advertising and campaign ads. This form of “small acts” is valuable because people inadvertently will share their experiences through the social web. In a matter of minutes, the company can tell their customers all their good and bad news and small issues from customers can quickly become important, which makes them feel connected to the company.
3. From “Controlling Our Image” to “Being Ourselves”
The goal should not be to create a polished and controlled image but to let everyone see that they are a company made up of human beings and not robots. One way is to let the employees be able to write about the company but intact policies to help regulate the type of content put out. This is a way to have a more active and engaged customer. It lets the average person see what is really going on and to not just corporate jargon.
4. From “Hard to Reach” to “Available Everywhere”
Finally, social media allows the company to re-define what it means to engage the customer. It is no longer acceptable to have an e-mail address and customer service number on one’s website. People want to interact with businesses directly and with the staggering amount of people turning to social media to look up companies it would be a death sentence to not have a social media presence.
Social media is changing the way we think about businesses. It is changing the way we interact with people in general. Businesses are seeing this as an opportunity and jumping on board and running with the crowd. For the businesses not going with this… they need to get on the ball. There are ways to evaluate the ROI, but the most important part of this new era of social media is to ENGAGE and make the customer apart of the business.
- Tiffany Langello
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