Does Social Media Matter?
Alexa Williams, ZD Design
That is the BIG question many businesses have been asking in 2010. Many businesses embraced Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, FourSquare and many other sites and created accounts to connect with existing and potential customers.
Other’s have still not jumped on the bandwagon. But the question remains are you missing out if you don’t add social media to your online presence? Our answer is Yes!
Social Media offers 1) a way to sell your product and services, 2) provide enhanced customer service, 3) a strong marketing tool and 4) a method for branding and reputation management. Social Media is a way to communicate and a mechanism to build business. In a very true sense Facebook and Twitter have replaced the act of the e-mail forward. Beyond that it offers a way to spread that same news (that we once did by forwarding an interesting e-mail) in a much more powerful way.
Today reach and influence matter. Twitter gains 270 thousand new profiles a day and it is estimated that Twitter will reach 200 million sign ups by the end of the year.
Ask yourself, “Is it important to rank in Google?” Google employs 70% of the search queries. Tweets with a link are indexed faster with Google than Google crawling your website. A Tweet with a link is simply the fasted way to be indexed in Google today. This means you can get direct traffic from Social Media because you are ranking in search from good content.
http://www.zddesign.net/free_social_marketing_analysis.html
Speaking of Google, in August of 2010 Facebook received more unique hits than Google for the first time. An overwhelming 50% of Americans on currently on Facebook. The average Facebook users spend 7 hours a month. That is pretty incredible.
This is why social media is such an important asset, in the way it is engineered and utilized. Used correctly and strategically Social Media creates relationships that benefit your brand, drive traffic to your website and build your other social media accounts. Social media is worth its investment.
