There has been a lot of debate as to whether social media is for any and every business on the face of the planet. You hear people say, "social media is helping businesses everywhere". Yet you hear other people say it's not working for their business.
I asked Tamar Weinberg and Scott Monty, both social media experts to help me answer the big question: "Is social media for every business" and this is what they had to say:
Tamar Weinberg: "Business as a rule is "social" â€" so social media is for all businesses. Granted, it will be easier for some businesses to succeed versus others, but everyone can make their mark."
Scott Monty: "Any business that has customers that want to communicate that way." By "that way", Scott means, "by social media".
I agree with both experts.
You see, business has always been "social" in some way even way before social media sites popped up. Business has always involved people interaction.
Think about the days (way before the social media web) when people had to make a sales presentation, collect suggestions from customers using a suggestion box, promote competitions through TV, radio, the print media, et cetera, all without the help of the internet.
These activities all involved some "social" interaction. Businesses had some sort of society around their brands.
So what has social media marketing changed? I think it hasn't changed anything. In fact, it has added something to the already "social" business. Social media has added the "personal" interaction that brands and their "societies" were lacking.
Social media is about personal interactions with your business' old society and likely new ones who may be recruited by your old society through referrals. Social media is a way of having fun, sharing useful product tips and building friendships with your business' society or audience.
Some businesses make the mistake of hard selling their products to their social media audience. This is a wrong move because social media is not about hard selling. Your audience is already being bombarded with banner ads, TV ads, radio ads and print ads from you and other businesses so using your Facebook fan page or company Twitter account to run more ads will be boring and less effective.
I guess you may be asking what the worth of social media is for you. Well, what I can say is that, social media is a means of increasing your society's population through referrals from fans and followers. Your existing clients and customers do all the selling for you. Besides, their friends trust them more than they trust you so you need not force anyone.
Some people say social media is a waste of time and resources. I don't really think so. It will be a waste of time if all you are trying to do is to get more followers and fans on your own. What you should do is to allow your existing audience to do all the 'reproduction' for you without you interfering.
You can entice them with coupons. You can say something like this, "Many people out there want to join our fan page. Let's make it happen. 30% discount on all orders for a week if we are able to reach 500 fans in the next 2 weeks."
Send it as a message to your newsletter subscribers, post it on your business blog and post it as a status update on both Facebook and Twitter and watch the fans roll in. You can use other 'baits' instead of coupons. Get creative with it. Play with ideas.
As Scott said, you will have to make sure you want to communicate or interact with your customers on the social web. However, since it's a two-way affair, you will also need to make sure that your customers qualify for social interactions.
For example, if you have a law firm, social media will not benefit you that much. Just think about it. There are some businesses that just can't produce massive results on the social web. If your customers or better, your business don't qualify to interact with its customers online, it will only be a waste of time and resources to try and get something massive from social media.
People who own these types of businesses often benefit by creating and maintaining a regular profile or as a single expert instead of creating a fan page for their business.
Do you think social media for business is worth it? I will love to know your thoughts and experiences in the comments box below.