With the growth of social media on the rise, it’s now more important than ever for businesses to take control of their online strategies and take advantage of the world of social media and its endless potential.
Just how important is social media? According to the Yellow Social Media Report from May 2013, 45% of Australian social media users access social media at least once a day. Furthermore, 20% of users use social media to research products and services, 95% of Australian social media users use Facebook, 67% of Australian social media users access social media sites on a smartphone and the typical Australian Facebooker spends more than 7 hours on the site a week. Also, recent research reflects that more than half of all Australians (12 million people) have a Facebook account. If these statistics are anything to go by, social media presents the perfect opportunity to reach out to and engage with current and potential customers in a way that wasn’t possible before.
So what about SM and businesses? The report outlines 30% of Australian small businesses use SM, 60% of large businesses update their SM every day and 29% of small businesses have no strategy to drive traffic to their SM presence.
Consumers engage with businesses online for a variety of reasons including: discounts, giveaways, product information, tips/advice, company information and feedback forums. It’s essential to tailor your SM strategy to meet the unique needs of your customer base. These unique needs tend to vary industry to industry so it’s important to first understand what do your customers want from your aSM presence?
A recent article from Forbes outlines the 7 Steps to Productive Business Use of Social Media. These steps are highly regarded and include:
1. Focus on desired outcomes first: This is where you need to establish your goals and objectives for your SM campaign. This may include: increased brand awareness, lead generation, community management, branding etc. You should focus your SM strategy around achieving your outcomes.
2. Incorporate brand personality and voice: This is all about who you are as a company and how you want to be perceived by your audience. Today, users expect a more humanized brand voice and not so corporate and formal. Some companies even select a popular culture figure to be their voice online and tailor all their communications to sounding like that person to achieve consistency. Once you have established your brand personality and voice, developing content comes easily.
3. Identify the smallest segments possible of your constituents: SM allows you to drill down to micro-segments and target niche customer groups. By targeting very small segments, for example, a small proportion of your potential customer base, you can dramatically improve engagement levels and conversion ratios.
4. Identify the communities for these micro-segments: An online community is a group of individuals who are joined together based on what they value. Through the use of SM, you can create your own community by blogging and creating engagement. These communities then become an advocate and asset for your brand.
5. Identify the influencers of these communities: The influencers are the leaders of your community; they have a lot of credibility and authority on your product/service and have the potential to influence other people. Once you identify the influencers, you can spend time influencing the influencers and getting them on board.
6. Create an action plan with metrics: This involves developing a strategy around; channels, SEO content creation with content an metrics. There are many different SM related activities and approaches, pick the one that fits the goals and objectives that you earlier set.
7. Repeatedly execute and measure results: This is all about measuring your return on investment (ROI). This may be done by looking at revenue growth, brand awareness, client satisfaction, increase in online traffic etc. Just like with any other investment, it’s essential to evaluate your results.
However, social media should not just be left to large businesses. A recent article from news.com.au demonstrates why social media is a perfect fit for small businesses. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission deputy chairman Michael Schaper states “social media allows businesses to step over the boundaries of geography and reach right out to a market”. The article also goes on to give some quick basic tips about social media including: don’t make misleading claims on social media, don’t allow others to make misleading claims in comments, minimise your risk, monitor your social media and respond to false, misleading or deceptive comments instead of removing them.
If you think it’s time for your business to become savvy and start using social media, now is the time. Recent surveys show how important a good online reputation is for success in many industries and social media can have a great impact on your business.
