By this point you’ve probably heard about social media and likely associate it with teenagers glued to their phones tweeting about their breakfast, taking selfies for Instagram and Facebooking everything they encounter. But do you know that over 30 million businesses have active pages on Facebook? Numbers show that over 71% of adults online use Facebook, 22% use LinkedIn, 21% use Pinterest, 19% use Twitter and 17% use Instagram. Facebook has 1.32 billion users and Twitter 232 million.
With numbers like that you have to ask if it makes sense for your business to have a social media presence. As with most things, it depends on the nature of your business and whether social media will help you achieve long term strategic goals.
Reasons for companies to have a social media presence:
1 – The numbers indicate that people are using social media to make decisions. Having a social media presence gives you an opportunity to influence those decisions by sharing your brand identity and product/service offerings to an audience choosing to follow you. 63% of Facebook users check in daily. So it makes sense to post company news on your Facebook company page in addition to your company website. Then tweet it!
2 – Social media provides your business with the opportunity to connect with followers, who can be clients and potential clients. People turn to social media for everything from news directly from journalists to latest legal developments in the law to their network’s opinion on social and popular issues. People use social media to learn about company culture and humor (or lack thereof). Social media is an opportunity to share thoughts, commentary and educate the public.
3 – Social media is a great opportunity to talk about what your company does. Secure a new client? Post it to social media. Donate to a community organization? Post it to social media. Hosting an event? You get the idea. Social media, properly integrated with PR, is an opportunity for people and companies to share their accomplishments and ideas with an engaged audience.
So, you’ve decided you want to create a social media profile. Next question: which site? Facebook? Twitter? Linkedin? Next post will discuss the pros and cons of various social media platforms.