I heard a wholesale business executive recently saying, “I don’t need social media.” I believe it’s like saying I don’t need water to live. Despite the fact that Facebook, Twitter, and Google+aremassivesocialmediaplayersthere are still many businesses, who think social media is not for them. According to recent research, around 67% of internet users in the US will use social media by the end of 2013 and this percentage is expected to rise further with time. Around 16% of businesses throughout the world are currently using social media for customer service.
Facebook has currently more than 800 million active users whereas the number for Twitter is 100 million. These are the users who frequently use these mediums to connect to hundreds of people, events and groups. Google+ was launched in June 2011, but by December 2011, it had successfully enticed 62 million users into signing up for its social network. Google+ also reported that 625,000 new users join its platform witheverypassing day.
Despite this huge popularity of social media, I wonder how some businesses manage to survive without utilising these platforms. While discussing the same topic with a fellow businessman who has not been all that fond of social media, I learnedwhatexactly his reasons for avoiding social networks were. Following are some interesting things I learned and would definitely like to share them with my readers.Social Media is primarily for youngMany businesses having target audiences of middle aged and senior citizens believe social media is not suitable for them since its users are all youngsters. It is true that when people think of Facebook, Twitter, or Google+, they think of teens using these networks preferably via their smart phones to communicate with their friends but this is not the complete truth.
According to a report, 37% of Facebook users and 53% of Twitter users are mostly under the age bracket of 35. This means you can expect to find countless mature people as well as under 35s. Secondly businesses must not forget that the remaining 63% users of Facebook and 47% users of Twitter include many middle aged and senior citizens. Therefore, we definitively cannot say social media is only for a younger audience. It has the potential to cater to every type of business.
Social Media is only an advertisement tool
According to a research, almost one fifth of the businesses consider social media just an advertisement platform where they present their special offers, feature company news, display products and offer coupons. This is only half the truth because the key purpose of social media is not advertisement. It is used to encourage a two-way conservation between customers and businesses. The primary reasons of joining social media are to build an audience, engage them using your business pages, teach and learn from them.
Social Media is hectic and time consuming
Many big businesses think that keeping a tab on your social media pages is very hectic and time consuming since the network of customers grows and you need to refine your plan continuously according to their needs. The fact is that success from social media is not dependent on time. It rather needs consistency. Keep on engaging customers, reply on others posts, invite them to ‘Like’ your page and build credibility. The key to success lies in spending less but quality time on social media platforms and consistently.
Social Media rewards on quantity of posts
Some businesses steer clear of social media because they believe that in order to generate more sales through social networks they must publish more posts. It is true that Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ need fresh content but never take updating to the extreme, because it is not a game of numbers. Success from social media depends on the interactivity and the quality of posts rather than on the quantity. If you are successful in generating the same number of sales with only three posts per week, there is no need to waste time in publishing 30 posts. That is because it is the power of well-planned content, which matters in the end.
If you too have been avoiding social media because of the above mentioned reasons, clear your misconceptions and start making the most out of these tools, now!
