Corporations Use of Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites are the new web sensation. Newly released statistics suggest that more time is spent on Facebook than Amazon, YouTube, and Google combined. You might be surprised to find out that teens and young adults are not the only people utilizing this free networking resource.

Corporations that are on the cutting edge of customer service are tapping into the resources that their customers are using on a daily basis. They operate on the mentality that the discussion about products and services is going on within the parameters of social media so you might as well monitor and tap into it. In recent years, many corporations have added Social Media Specialists to their payroll to help launch their online initiative to reach customers in a way that they want to be reached.

Victoria's Secret as 2,812,381 fans on Facebook and 5,683 followers on Twitter. Murphy USA has recently tapped into the on-line imitative to reach their customers and has hit the ground running. They have 3,580 fans on Facebook and 416 followers on Twitter. Wal-Mart has 671,037 fans on Facebook and Pizza Hut has a whopping fan base of 160,816.

Using social media networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Facebook many corporations are reaching out to their customers through online sweepstakes, e-offers, incentives, polls, voting, giveaways. Murphy USA just finished up their "I Love Murphy USA" Twitter Sweepstakes in which they gave away $100 of gas daily as well as iPods and GPS devices on a daily basis from February 1 to February 14. To enter the challenge Murphy USA people simply had to tweet why they loved Murphy USA.

In addition to advertising their products and reaching out via social media networking sites, corporations are also monitoring online posts and blogs in an effort to influence customer satisfaction. Tools like Seesmic, HootSuite, and Google Alerts allows one to monitor online activity that mentions your specific-or your competitors-online activity and posts. For instance, if you have a bad experience at a Wal-Mart or a Murphy USA station and you go online and either blog or tweet about it, chances are that it will be brought to the attention of a corporate Social Media Specialist. The specialist would then forward your complaint to the proper department who would attempt to rectify the situation and make you a happy customer.

Social media networking sites are no longer for just teens and young adults. Everyone from colleges, to businesses, to corporations are tapping into these online services. Businesses that are not reaching their customers are falling behind their competition because they are failing to reach out to their customers.