Social Media Marketing - an Insight

Social media can be anything like online applications, platforms and media that make makes anyone interact, collaborate and share their content. Social media is nothing new. Right from the beginning, the Social media phase of the Internet was found in the form of chat rooms, message boards and peer-to-peer communication channels. However, the level of involvement by the masses has grown rapidly as the modern Social media platforms are limitless and inspiring.

With the help of changes that took place on the face of online Social media, one could easily contribute to the Internet with much less technical know-how. The innovations in the computing technologies, Internet technologies, web development and the wide spread and easy accessibility of broadband have contributed to the monumental consumer adoption. This makes the revolution of Social media a very important phenomenon as it has enormous potential to impact all the other forms our media and thereby shifting the attention from professional content producers to the consumer.

The key Social Platforms that are driving the Social media revolution are Blogging, Micro Blogging, Social Networking, RSS, Message Boards, Classifieds, Chat Rooms, Podcasts, Photo Sharing, Video Sharing and Widgets.

Why should a company consider using Social media as part of its corporate communications strategy?

The key underlying technologies that drive the Social media revolution are continuing their assent. Today, Social media has established itself very strongly everywhere. Wherever there is an Internet connection, Social media has its presence and it has become an important factor and all marketers, advertisers and content producers should consider it a vital part of their communications. Undoubtedly, Social media has influenced every aspect of the Internet and changed the role it plays in our lives forever.

With Social media, the opportunities for companies to connect with their investors/customers (and allow them to connect back) are monumental. Cone Research just released some statistics showing that 56% of the total American consumers have a stronger connection and a better served by feel, when they have an opportunity to interact with the companies in a Social media environment. This study also found that 93% of total Americans believe that a company should have its presence in Social media and 85% believe that a company should not only be present in Social media, but should also interact with its consumers it.

In the transparent and open age of Social media revolution, blogs have become an essential tool for online reputation management and consumers today expect them. All the brands and companies should definitely consider taking the help of blogs to create an open and honest mode of expression.

According to a survey made in April 2008, Cogent Research found that the US investors are engaged highly in Social media and their decisions of investment are greatly influenced by it. The study also found that 25% of adults in the US online community are engaged in Social media that is specifically related to personal finance and investing. To add more, almost two-thirds of high net worth investors who can be defined as those having $100,000 or more in investable assets claimed that content generated by the peers in the online community about personal investing and finance has influenced their financial decisions and purchasing behaviors.

As told by Christy White, chief of operations at Cogent Research, to Business Wire, "today's companies can no longer sit on the sidelines when it comes to Social media. Moreover, the purchasing decisions are will be influenced by what the investors see on blogs, videos and message boards. Most of the financial services companies will increasingly feel the impact of Social media on their bottom lines. The important question that the firms should be asking is not 'if,' but 'how quickly' they can get engaged in Social media."

What are the key benefits of implementing a corporate Social media strategy?

It helps to enhance and develop relationships with key audiences (i.e. customers and investors).
It boosts the reputation of your business.
It spreads and improves the brand awareness.
It drives investor/customer awareness of your business.
It helps to get your message right in front of your target audience in a faster and efficient manner.

To put it short, Social media makes your way easy to build a larger, more interested audience of engaged brand stakeholders in a short period and with an economic budget than with any other form of traditional media.

If you are still not able to decide about getting involved actively in Social media for marketing any of your business or businesses, you should look at some hard numbers that will help convince you.

Given below are some of the interesting facts that we were able to gather.

Facebook statistics:

It has more than 10.1 Billion active users (people who have accessed their Facebook accounts within the past month)
Facebook is in the top five list of the most-trafficked websites in the world (as per comScore).
Facebook is the most-trafficked Social media website in the world (as per comScore).
More than half of the Facebook users are outside of their colleges.
In the Facebook community, the fastest growing demographic is those 25 years old and older.

Twitter statistics (Note: Twitter statistics may be a bit in appropriate because of the fact that not everyone accesses Twitter from the website. Many of its users use their mobile phones or third party tools like Twitterrific etc.)

Total users are as high as 1+ million.
Total Active Users are 200,000 per week.
Total Twitter Messages stand at 3 million/day.

LinkedIn statistics:

It has more than 25 million experienced professionals from all over the world.
Has more than 150 industries listed on LinkedIn.

How does a company measure Social media marketing success?

Measuring the success of your Social media campaign is much easier than measuring the success of conventional media. In the conventional campaign, when you issue a press release, you may need to cross your fingers and hope that your message reaches the right audiences. However, with the use of Social media, you can always expect a quantifiable and dependable data. Social Media marketers will be able to measure the success of their campaign very effectively. They can do so by looking at the interest and volume of conversations that appear in the form of the number of people joining the groups, the number of blog posts and different kinds of site metrics related to the site traffic, gadgets and widgets added etc. Today, good web analytics software is available in the market using which you can enhance the accuracy while measuring the campaign statistics.

How does any company implement Social media?

Create

The obvious future of online marketing or for that matter any marketing is all about projecting how you want to be perceived rather than just talking about it. The Social media gives you exactly this possibility by creating the much-needed experience.

You can create branded content and distribute it across all the global Social media platforms and arenas. Consumers are already doing it and when it comes to the well-resourced brands, they do not have an excuse.
You can develop software gadgets and widgets, plug-ins, applications, services and platforms that create a genuine and unique consumer benefits and drive end users' engagement. You can provide consumers with the tools so that they can manage their personal brands online.

You can be inventive and innovative in connecting with your consumers. Offline communications can integrate with your online activities and you can use Social media as a link or as an interesting story to communicate effectively.

Participate

Do not even think of monotonous, siloed i.e. themed brand sites. It is an interlinked world of different platforms and content out there. In such an environment, the stand-alone brand site is not as engaging.
Be a global trotter and think global. All your consumers and Social interactions are moving international. They are not constrained by language or borders. It is the time to acquire the Global brand identity. There is a dire need of multi market campaigns and international structures.

You have to embrace all the Social media platforms and make them a part of your communications mix. The different places where you can find the greatest opportunities for engagement are blogging platforms, Social networks, video and photo-sharing sites as these are the places where the consumers spend most of their time.

Connect

You can use Social media effectively to create a dialogue with investors and consumers.
Keep track of the opinions in blogosphere and other Social media platforms.
Make your presence inside the Social Networks. Always try to create new profiles, make efforts to develop networks that make the distribution of your content easy. Make sure to employ advertising and sponsorship that drive engagement with investors and consumers.

Give ample time to your consumers to interact with your brand. In the purview of Social media, the need for branded blogs, user generated advertising and constant flow of feedback are highly expected.

Sources:

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
http://socialmediastatistics.wikidot.com/linkedin
http://twitter.com/statistics