What are the Advantages of Social Media?
The dominance of online social media is such that company’s can no longer afford to ignore them. Without question, Facebook still controls the market, but that does not overlook the importance of MySpace, Twitter, Digg, reddit, You Tube, Stumble Upon or Meetup.
Each social media network offers businesses in different fields different advantages. Whereas Facebook is fast been adopted by all businesses as an integral part of their online promotional mix, others are more tailored.
For example, MySpace is traditionally more popular with the music industry. Stumble Upon gives all web sites the chance to make their sites more visible and Twitter allows direct conversation with an infinite number of prospects.
There are various online reports that sing the merits of social media. One report states that 85 percent of businesses it surveyed confirmed that social media directly contributed to the business’s online exposure and resulted in increased revenue.
In the same report, 63 percent of businesses surveyed said that social media increased traffic and subscribers to their sites; 56 percent said that social media led to new online business partnerships while 54 percent said that social media improved their online ranking.
A further 52 percent said that social media generated qualified leads; 48 percent said that social media directly contributed to the company’s ability to sell its products and close sales while another 48 percent said that social media significantly reduced the company’s overall marketing budgets.
In short, social media has led to a democratization of media. It has paved the way for a new generation of online relationships and conversation. It breeds and encourages creativity and mixes of culture. It fosters an ethos of community, sharing and connecting whilst making all sorts of relationships, particularly business relationship more transparent.
If there was one thing that is certain about social media is that it is unpredictable. However there is a lot to learn from the market growth and trends in social media. It is from these statistics and pieces of information that you will be able to put together your social media marketing plan.
