How Can Social Media Really Help Your Business?

When you’re in the online marketing world, it’s easy to assume that everyone is doing what you’re doing. If I don’t stop to think about it, I just assume that every company has a website, every company is using Search Engine Marketing, and every company is taking advantage of social media. That’s false. It’s easy to forget that close to 40% of SMBs don’t have a website. Even among big companies, who almost all have websites, their integration into online marketing is far from complete. Only 16% of Fortune 500 companies have blogs on their site.

Be sure to keep those numbers in mind next time someone tells you “everyone is on the web and using social media.” It’s not true. What is true is that if you want to innovate (or just follow the times), that you should at least be on the web and experimenting with social media marketing.

So, what is the value of social media? What can it do for you that you can’t do better on your own?

Humanize your company

It’s a paradox that SMBs try to be like big companies, while big companies are trying to be like SMBs. Many large companies, such as JetBlue and Zappos have used the social web with great success to humanize what would otherwise be simply monolithic, faceless corporations. This human aspect is the SMB’s biggest advantage in competition against big corporations, but in order to maintain that advantage, the small business owner needs to be prepared to do at least as much as the big corp to provide a human face to his customers.

Provide Exceptional Customer Service

This is another area that Zappos has done extremely well, so it’s no wonder that they were bought out by Amazon earlier this year for ridiculous amounts of money. Amazon wasn’t looking to buy their technology, they obviously had technology equally as good as that of Zappos. What they were looking to absorb was their culture of exceptional customer service. Providing this customer service on the social web is easier than ever. Monitor the conversations around your brand, and responding to them in a human way.

Develop Loyalty

Customers are not loyal to low prices or fast service, because they can often find things for cheaper and faster. They’re loyal to remarkable brands – brands that make them feel good about purchasing from them. Through the interactive experience that social media provides, by putting in just that little bit of effort, you can make your customer’s experience exceptional, which will lead to loyalty and repeat business, not to mention word of mouth.

Announce Promotions

Seth Godin popularized the term permission marketing to identify marketing that people want to see. The theory is straightforward. Marketing is more effective if you’re targeting it to people who want it. By using social media, your audience comes to you and listens to what you have to say. That way, when you announce a promotion or anything really, you have a captive audience that has already given you its permission to talk to it.

Discover leads, partnerships, opportunities

The social web’s biggest strength is that it’s social. It connects people to one another, and in business, success is about who you know. Through social media, you have the opportunity to meet new potential customers, new potential partners, and to discover opportunities that you may have otherwise missed out on if you were solely relying on traditional broadcast marketing.

Learn

The wrong way to use social media is to simply broadcast over it, without tuning in to the conversations. The value in social media comes from the wealth of information that is given away freely. You can learn more from social media interaction than an entry-level university course if you take the time to listen to the right people.

So, Should I Use Social Media?

As I said in my last post, social media is still young and growing. As far as I’m concerned, it has potential, but it is as yet unproven. It may be cheap as far as the monetary cost of marketing goes, but it is probably the most time-consuming form of marketing you can engage in, and one thing most small and medium-sized businesses don’t have a ton of, is time.

My advice is to try it out cautiously. Begin with one outlet at a time, and once you’re comfortable with it, add on another. Don’t dive headfirst into every social media outlet you can find. There is no easier way to find yourself with no time at all. Instead, start with a blog. Once you’ve gotten the hang of blogging and participating in the blogging community, branch out onto Twitter. If that goes well, see if Facebook can help your brand, and so on. It does not necessarily have to be done in that order, you could do it any number of ways, but my point is that you need to slowly immerse yourself.

Finally, if you decide to take the plunge into social media marketing, always do it as a complement to other forms of marketing. There have been success stories of people who market their business using the social web, but that is the exception not the rule, so be careful. If, after some time you do find that social media marketing is working better for you than anything else, you can start leaving behind some other media, but don’t bet the farm on social media marketing.