Is A Social Networking Strategy Really Important For A Business?
There generally seem to be three reactions to social networking from businesses:
A) Ban it
B) Embrace it
C) Ignore it
Sometimes businesses try a combination of the above in relation to different sites (they might ban Facebook and YouTube, embrace Linkedin and ignore Twitter entirely) but misunderstanding their effectiveness can be perilous. This article outlines some of the benefits of a Social Networking Strategy.
1) If you do not have a social networking strategy you have no control over what people are saying about your business
People often feel very comfortable on social networking sites. They are likely to be quite open with scant regard for who might be reading what they post. However, if you choose option A) above then you are likely to be ignorant of what has been said about your business – there could be libellous or at least erroneous comments, allegations that you do not have the opportunity to respond to, opinion from embittered former employees or positive messages about your business that could have been capitalised upon. At the very least if you access the data, you can manage it to some extent. If gossip becomes viral then it can be extremely difficult to control. As topical examples; the false relationship between the MMR vaccination and autism gained apparent credence in a viral manner and no number of respected scientific opinions could stem the flow of public belief at least for a period of time; and the international success of recent contenders on “Britain’s Got Talent” has been to a great extent due to YouTube.
The Internet is the most effective way for news and gossip to spread and if you do not take action to dam the river early and at source you will have no way of stemming the flow once a pandemic of information dissemination has taken hold.
2) Social networking is one of the most cost effective forms of advertising
A television, print or even to some extent traditional Internet advertisement (such as pay per click) is time dependent. The advertisement requires that the right demographic is reading/viewing it at precisely the time that it is displayed. There is a significant element of luck involved. This can be mitigated to some extent in terms of demographic study or the type of media used but success ultimately is based on the advertisement appealing at particular point in time to the particular person who views it. Social networking can resolve this issue by engaging your demographic to not only view an advertisement but to tell everyone in their network about it, presumably a reasonable proportion of which will also fall into the advertisement’s target audience. If a demographic can spread an Internet link between them, natural curiosity dictates that a reasonable proportion will view it as it simply requires one click and minimal effort. This is the very reason why many major corporations are spending exorbitant sums on YouTube advertising but only with a cross platform social network strategy can these messages be really successful. If you have ready access to a contact base that will spread your news for you then you can cut down on advertising or at least improve an advertisement’s visibility by making sure that as many people as possible are aware of it.
3) Your best (and worst) advertisement can be your staff and the way they speak about your business
Positive reinforcement from ones staff is a great way of making sure that you are able to recruit new ones. However, it can also give assurances about the state of your business internally that will reflect well to the market generally and your clients specifically. Monitoring social networking chatter can enable you to pick out arguably more honest opinion from existing staff about your business and address issues as appropriate. You can then resell these changes back to a social network. Businesses that have a reputation as a ‘great place to work’ have gained this profile simply by delivering it and then telling people about it. But it certainly helps if you can develop consistent brand messages that you wish to be propagated throughout the Internet.
4) A strong network can be a source of often free but excellent advice
The ‘Answers’ section within Linkedin demonstrates this very well. There are daily numerous questions being asked and answered with useful professional and free advice. To get a second opinion or, for example, to receive basic accounting advice on a potential issue before speaking to your own professional advisor can help you attain best value in making a meeting much more beneficial as it is more informed. Likewise offering advice is an excellent and free way of promoting your business indirectly and raising your own profile within the online community.
5) It can provide an extremely efficient way of communicating messages to a disparate work force, client base or networked group
Twitter’s short message format is fantastic for this. From a recruitment perspective, Fellows and Associates’ Twitter page delivers messages about new job openings, patent news, etc. on a daily basis. These can be unobtrusive, the readership themselves decide whether to opt in or opt out and we have a target audience that we can talk to en masse in a few seconds with a simple online interface.
6) It can put you in touch with markets and or people that are not as easily accessible in any other way
The Internet and particularly social networks make the world a great deal smaller. You can quickly build a contact base in other locations without spending thousands on market research, advertising or other endeavours. A simple search on Linkedin can produce local contacts that can help you expand into new locations or discover market conditions in other areas of the world.
7) It can raise your profile and demonstrate credibility through referable data.
Are your clients unsure as to whether to use your services or not? Then think of the advantages of being able to point them in the direction of numerous references, opinions and statements online which are crucially on third party sites (i.e. not your own website) that tell them how great you are. Simple but remarkably effective.
Social Media is not going anywhere and is constantly evolving. Fellows and Associates Management Consultancy Division are able to help our clients develop a social media strategy and hopefully this article demonstrates in part just how important this can be.
Fellows and Associates.