BILYONGPISO JOURNEY-Money and Travel Adventure Blog: Mass Social Media and Your Business

Mass Social Media and Your Business

Posted in | at 6:14 PM

~~Mass~~Social Media and Your Business

I can still remember my Professor's lecture about mass media - it refers collectively to all communication technologies—including television, newspapers, and radio—which are used for mass communications (delivering messages to a large audience).It plays a significant role in shaping public perceptions that is why businesses put large amount of their budget in creating advertisements that can be seen, heard and read by large numbers of people.

McDonalds, Jollibee, Coca-Cola, Tide, and Colgate are only some of the brands that were made famous because of mass media. If you want your business to be heard and on top of your competitors, you need to spend lots of money in advertisements through TV, radio and prints.

But that was long time ago. The world for advertising is now changing. From the traditional mass media concept which is like this

to this

and we call this.... SOCIAL MEDIA.

Businesses are now embracing social media as a cheap (yes, truly inexpensive, mostly, free) source of promoting their products and services. If you are starting your business or have an existing business, you should now be well-equipped for this new revolution. Be ready for a change.

So, what is Social Media?

According to Wikipedia…

"Social media supports the human need for social interaction with technology, transforming broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many)...”
It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers.

Also, please take note that note, that companies shouldn’t see social media as just dialogues between customers, but as dialogues between the brand and persons.

So, Instead of old model where the brand is broadcasting to the consumers, social media shifts one dimensional passive consumers into multidimensional active persons.

It also shifts broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues.Whick looks like this:

In practice, we are talking about...

Social Networking site (Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning, Bebo...)
Blogs (Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, Livejournal, Vuodatus...)
Microblogging (Twitter, Tumblr, Brightkite, Qaiku, Facebook
statuses…)
Social bookmarking (Delicious, Digg…)
Media sharing & streaming (Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, Qik,
Livestream…)
Wikis, Review sites, Virtual worlds, Online
gaming, Podcasts, Event sites etc. etc.
+ a endless amount of mashups & other stuﬀ

Why Social Media Matters, specially in your business?

This is a very good and timely question. Before we answer that, let's take a look first at these numbers:

24 hours of video material updated to YouTube every minute (June 2010)
9 250 000 articles available on Wikipedia (May 2010)
4 000 000 000 photos archived on Flickr (Dec 2009)
50 000 000 tweets per day on Twitter (Feb 2010)
200 000 000 users each day visiting Facebook (June 2010)
100 000 000 users access Facebook through mobile devices (June 2010)
25 000 000 000 pieces of content shared monthly on Facebook (June 2010)

Wow! These are great numbers. But these numbers are irrelevant. So let's just forget them. Instead, let's think of the meaning of this all.

Nowadays, as social media becomes customary way of communicating and participating, it will inevitably reshape the way we see the world, people will consider themselves as part of communities, rather than part of audiences. People don’t want to be treated like audiences anymore. The rise of Social Media has ushered in an era where people are talking, ranting, complaining, praising, reviewing, and sharing everything online for the world to see. They are talking about products, services, companies, experiences (bad or good) and providing their feedback, on their terms.

That is why more and more businesses are using social media to get in front of their target audience. If your business is "out there", more and more people will find you. You don't have to spend thousand or millions in reaching your target market. What are the benefits of Social Media to your business?

Awareness - The first major benefit of social media is that it brings awareness. It is a low-cost way to get your name or the name of your organization on the web and into the minds of customers, patrons, and prospects. Anyone can set up an account on Facebook, Twitter and dozens of other sites free of charge. The only cost involved is the cost of your time.
Identify Customer and Prospect Wants and Needs - Once you have established a presence in social media your business can connect with and stay in touch with customers to identify wants, needs, and problems- and communicate your solutions. Using social media, you can also monitor what your customers and others are saying about your brand. No need for expensive market research survey.
Make Announcements - Social media networks are a good place to toot (or tweet) your own horn. You can announce new products, services, enhancements, awards/recognition, etc. on social sites to spread the word more quickly. Just be sure to mix in helpful advice and conversation and not to toot your own horn too frequently.
Partner Up - Find new business partners, vendors, suppliers and business opportunities and stay in touch with current business partners, vendors, and suppliers. I’ve met a few business associates through both LinkedIn and Twitter and did so within only a few months of using each service. I was not looking for this, it just happened naturally. If that is your goal, however, there are strategies to follow to make your search more productive and efficient.
Build Trust and Credibility - I think this is the most crucial to businesses- especially if you sell a product with a long sales cycle that takes multiple touches with your customers, is that social media helps you build trust and credibility. Customers want to buy from people they know, like, and trust. Social media is a wonderful tool to get to know customers as people, become personable to them and get them to like you. Using social media is a convenient, and even fun, way to develop and cultivate relationships with your customers and prove your credibility and trustworthiness.

A little quote before we end...

“Although methods such as paid search, Web display ads and TV commercials still reach a larger audience, the "influence" tapped in social media is a heck of a lot stronger than it is with traditional advertising.”
– Seth Greenberg, Intuit Inc.

So, what's stopping you from entering into the Social Media realm?