12 Most Pressing Reasons to Get Your Company Using Social Media

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“How can you squander even one more day not taking advantage of the greatest shifts of our generation? How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?” ~ Seth Godin

•  If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s third largest country.
•  Facebook has 750 million users. They spend 700 billion minutes per month.
•  Twitter has over 140 million active users that are sending 190 million average tweets per day.
•  Google+ has more than 25 million users.

These people are your potential customers and you can reach them on social media, because that’s where they are spending their time!

1. Social media allows you to listen to your customers

People are talking about your business on social media weather or not you are present on social media. There are free resources such as Google Alerts and Twitter Searches that allow you to see what people are saying about your company.

2. Ability to highlight company success

You can easily share any information with your followers. You can tell your clients and potential business partners about the employee of the month, your company’s success volunteering at the local food shelf or share how much fun the company had doing highway clean up last week.

3. Social media success doesn’t happen overnight

Get started now. You won’t have 1,000 followers or likes instantly. Social media success is the sum of small conversations over time combined together to add value.

4. Save your company name

Someone else could register with a social media site and use your company’s name. So even if you company isn’t ready to use newer sites like Google+ and Pinterest it may be a good idea to at least register your account so you can secure your name. Leave a “Coming Soon” or “Under construction” message so people don’t get upset at your lack of activity.

5. Social media is word of mouth

Your customers are talking about you on social media and no one is there to react to the conversation. Let people do your sales for you if you’re providing a good service then people will tell their friends about it.

6. Enter the new frontier of customer service

Social media is the new way to provide customer service. It lets you address questions, concerns and suggestions in a new way 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. People are not calling stores when they have issues they are sending tweets and writing on timelines.

7. Distribute coupons faster cheaper and more effectively

Why waste money printing off coupons and then paying to mail them to your customers when you can publish them for free via social media? You can go green by having people show you the coupon on their smartphone instead of printing the coupons. Providing coupons on social media sites allow your customers to share with their friends, there is a chance your deal could go viral!

8. Hiring made easier

Social media can assist your company when hiring new employees. You can post jobs on LinkedIn and you can announce that your company is hiring on all other sites. It’s also a good idea to check out any potential new employee on social media sites before you hire them.

9. Participation in social media is free

Social media sites are free to sign up for and free to use. However, it may be a good idea to hire a person to manage your company’s social media. Some big companies like McDonalds, UPS, and Walgreens have teams of people managing their social media efforts.

10. Keep your current customer and get new customers

Social media is a great way to grow your business. You can connect with current customers in a platform that they are comfortable with. You can also reach out to prospective customers on social media. Examples of reaching out to customers on social media would include mentioning people in tweets or tagging photos on Facebook.

11. Reach the younger generation

The young people (and some not so young people) are on social media. Phone books, hand written letters and newspapers are all a thing of the past. If you want to reach the next generation of customers and employees, being involved with social media is essential. Social media is how people communicate. If you want to reach them, get social!

12. Increase company visibility using social media

Social media involvement, when done correctly, will propel your company into a role of an industry leader. This will help you not only get the word out about your company and your products, but it will also put you in a position to give advice to others in your industry.

Featured image courtesy of webtreats licensed via Creative Commons.

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Jenny Kay Pollock

Jenny Kay Pollock is the social media specialist at Four51. She assists with social media for FanTools including updating @FanTools, Facebook, and the company blogfour51. Connect with her business accounts or her personal Twitter @Jennykaypollock either way or or on Pinterest, she’s happy to hear new ideas and feedback!