Love It Or Hate It Social Media Is Here To Stay
The rush to social media may be confusing and difficult to manage for traditional businesses but it is real and here to stay.
Even though social media has grown in recent years, it is still at its early stage of development and so there are few experts to guide us.
The relative lack of experts in the field represents bad news and good news. Bad news because it is difficult to get clear, simple, useful advice about how to effectively use social media.
Good news because we can become our own experts and learn how to use it as a competitive advantage to guide our business and professional lives.
A marketing person’s life used to be simple. They met with a client, agreed a budget and spend it on TV, radio or newspaper ads.
Everyone was happy and for many decades it all seemed to work well, as the client reached the audience they wanted and kept increasing their market share.
With the introduction of the internet and social media the difficulties began, as the number of platforms multiplied and it became less clear how to reach the customer.
The difficulties continue even when you decide what platforms to use, as customers move from one platform to another depending on their popularity.
Getting back to the good news and the need to become your own expert, there are a number of things you can do to make social media work for your business. They include the following:
– decide what you want to achieve from the use of social media
– look at, and learn from, the data provided by social media platforms
– decide whether you want short-term ‘likes’ and ‘followers’ or long-term engagement and relationships with customers
– remember most people start with Facebook and twitter but check out what platform is best for your business
– measure your return on investment and keep measuring it
SO, accept that social media is not a passing fad and embrace it as an essential tool for business and career success.
What do you think? Do you love or hate social media? Get in touch, we would love to hear your views contact Nick on 028 8224 9494 or via Twitter @nick_oec.
