5 Reasons Why Your Business Needs Social Media

5-reasons-why-your-business-needs-social-media

Over the past month Facebook has hit 1 Billion users, that’s right; as the infamous Kevin O’Leary would say on Dragon’s Den “ You got it right that’s B-ba-ba-BILLION”. For everyone that thinks that Social Media is still a fad here are 5 more reasons why your Business should be creating a Social Media Strategy:

1. Brand Awareness – By having Social Media accounts and pages on the web it will help increase Brand Awareness for your Organization.

For example, if I was a fan of MainMenus.com on Facebook, I would not only see the various posts they make about the Restaurant and Dining industry, but since they post everyday, it will keep them at the top of my mind. So the next time I am looking for a restaurant I might see the MainMenus post and visit their site to see my lunch options.

2. Contests, Deals and Check-Ins – More and more Social Media sites are offering users and businesses the ability to offer deals, hold contests or have their fans “Check-In” to their location. Offering deals or having contests with your fan base is a great way to engage your fans and encourage more Fans or Followers. It also gives you the ability to generate an email list.

“Check-Ins” are becoming increasingly popular with the invention of Smartphones. Foursqaure for example gave users deals during the London Olympics to customers that “Checked-In” to the various Businesses they visited.

The great thing about this is that it will encourage people to visit your business, but also encourage the visitor’s friends to as well. If I was looking for a place to eat and I see that my friend had just “Checked-In” to that restaurant near by, I would surely give that person a shout and see if they wanted to meet up for lunch instead of eating alone.

3. Leveraging your Fan’s Network – Another great thing about Social Media is that you are now able to connect with your Fan’s Networks.  On Facebook for example, if your business were to offer your Fan’s a great deal, there is a chance they might share it with their friends and their network. So if that person has 500 friends and they share that deal, then their 500 friends might also see the post and claim the deal.

4. More “Real Estate” on the Web – When searching your company name what should come up is your Website, that is, if it is properly optimized. Other things that might come up are your reviews. We all know that we can’t please ALL our customers and from time to time you might get a bad review. Is that what you want a potential customer to see?

By having Social Media pages out there, you will gain more “Real Estate” on those searches. If done properly they would see your Website, then your Social Media accounts, then everything else. That way you control the information they see on a majority of that first page.

5. Responding in Real Time – Just like I was saying above, you can’t always please everyone. From time to time you might have a customer that had a bad experience. That person might Tweet that they had a bad experience. Now Twitter’s 175 Million+ Users are able to see that message.

If you had a Twitter account you would be able to respond to that person right away. In turn, giving you a lot more credibility than if it was left unanswered. Here are a couple of stats for you:

– 70% of Companies ignore Complaints on Twitter

– 83% of People that have complained on Twitter were happy when they got a response.

Don’t you want to keep your Customer’s Happy? I guess a better question would be Still Think Your Business Doesn’t Need Social Media? In my humble opinion, if you are not on Social Media or have a company that does Social Media Management for your company, you will be left behind. Let me know what you think in the comments section below.