I have been aware of the benefits of social media for a while now and have used this blog as a pulpit and soapbox to shout from this digital hilltop. I have personally experienced the power of this new media to accelerate brand awareness and to spread my stories.
You can exhort and preach to the CEO’s and executives about social media’s power and some will “get it“, but until you start to experience it for yourself the flame will not blaze brightly.
I look at my blog’ s Google analytics from time to time and the Global reach that you can achieve with social media never ceases to amaze me (the current analytics statistics show me that JeffBullas.com is read in 190 countries by 172,443 unique visitors). I don’t know of any other media that could achieve that in less than 2 years without spending a cent in traditional advertising or marketing dollars.
The Harvard Business Review Analytics Services recently conducted a survey of 2,100 organisations and discovered that 79% are currently using social media channels. They also asked them what they saw as the benefits of social media and here are the results and feedback from the real world.
The 12 Major Benefits Of Social Media
1. Increased awareness of the organisation
2. Increased traffic to website
3. Greater favorable perceptions of the brand
4. Able to monitor conversations about the organisation
5. Able to develop targeted marketing activities
6. Better understanding of customers perceptions of their brand
7. Improved insights about their target markets
8. Identification of positive and negative comments
9. Increase in new business
10. Identification of new product or service opportunities
11. Ability to measure the frequency of the discussion about the brand
12. Early warning of potential product or service issues
Note: Below are the graphical results of the Harvard Study
What often does scare the CEO is that as well as the benefits that social media does bring, there is a downside encapsulated in this comment by Paul Gillin the author of “The New Influencers”
“Conventional marketing wisdom long held that a dissatisfied customer tells ten people. But…in the new age of social media, he or she has the tools to tell ten million.”
The challenge is to not let the fear of this unknown overwhelm the benefits that the social media revolution can provide to an organisation.
What benefits have you experienced with social media either for yourself or your company?
More Reading:
8 Reasons Why Social Media is Such a Powerful Marketing Medium
9 Ways To Convince The CEO To Use Social Media and Enter The 21st Century
The 7 Secrets to Ford’s Social Media Marketing Success
30 Fascinating Facebook Facts To Tell Your Friends
Image by Cayusa
