Taking Action

The evolution of social media is tremendous and fast, not to mention, obvious. Recent social media research shows that 79% of companies will use social media in their business. With the rapid movement towards social media, it would be unwise not to be involved. In the end, businesses don't get to choose whether to use social media or not, the real question is how well they use it.

Social networks enable companies to build relationship with customers like never before. However, when it comes to implementing a social media plan, even the large corporation may have trouble gaining "likes" and "followers." The key to succes lies within the effective strategic use of social media. Your business can post daily just for posting's sake. However, if you really want results from your social presence, here are some tools you can use:

• Promotional contests - they promote user interaction and increase in buzz. Many companies use this to unveil new products or services. 
• Customer Feedback - Allow customers to give feedback and recommendations through social media. Especially with Twitter, giving the product a special # will allow your company to be a part of the "trending" Tweets also.
• Get connected: As soon as you're online, start connecting with other businesses in your industry and the potential customers. The quicker you build a presence, the easier it will be to dominate social presence online.

Building a community out of thin air is hard. Your online presence must have a purpose and be real. Here are top 3 examples of companies using social media effectively:

1. Ford: The Detroit motor company may not have been the most popular but it regained its customer base through social media. Ford gave our 100 Fiestas to bloggers, filmmakers, and social networkers to document their life and publish it on FiestaMovement.com. With a cost of $5 million, Ford Fiesta gained 60% name recognition in the U.S. before its release. 
2. CBS: In 2007, now a popular show, The Big Bang Theory began airing on CBS. Unfortunately the competition from NBC was too high. Bill Prady, the producer of the show, began tweeting special commentaries and behind-the-scene pictures of the show. His twitter quickly gained attraction and the show rating rose from 59 to 12.
3. Pepsi: Created by GOOD PRojects, PepsiCo began rebranding itself to funding causes for social good. The idea was to "save something, create something, or change something." Word was spread through all social networks and after 6 months, the project gained 39 million votes and $90 million by early 2011.

From this example, we can clearly see that social online presence must have a presence. It also takes time, and the constant connection must be maintained. Social Media for business does many things such as brand creation and awareness, and build customer relations and maintain loyalty. Most importantly, it allows businesses to step down from strict business plans, and to get creative. With a little bit of spontaneity, companies can gain or regain success. 

Social Media and their Strategic Use III - LinkedIn

Last but not least, I will study the strategic use of the third most popular social media channel, LinkedIn. Unlike the other two social media channels discussed before, LinkedIn carries an aura of professionalism. Linkedin brings together many influential professionals and enables opportunities for social networking as well as social marketing. This professional nature of LinkedIn allows passive marketing. Facebook and Twitter enables companies to maintain customer loyalty by aggressively and frequently announcing news and promotions. On the other hand, LinkedIn allows connections with prospects, customers, and vender partners. Your businesses can gain exposure by building connections and displaying recommendations that lead to word-of-mouth.

What is it?
LinkedIn is a network with 65 million business professionals around the world and 110,000,000 unique visitors per month. This social network is obviously broad but also deep. The average LinkedIn member has an average annual household income of $109,000. Along with the high income, nearly 50% of LinkedIn members have decision-making authority of their companies. Hence, LinkedIn would be a great way to get connected and market your business.

How is it used?
Since its launch in 2003, LinkedIn continuously improved its site to better fit the need of the professionals. Just like other social media channels, LinkedIn provides a way to build brand awareness by establishing company representatives as industry experts. Lately, LinkedIn has become more image-centric. Companies should aim to place their logos wherever they can, so that when one adds your company as their interest, the logo will pop up on the feed. The logo will also be an essential part of individual profiles.

Following are 3 steps to effectively incorporate LinkedIn to your business strategy:

1. Select a company representative to lead discussions: Choose couple of your employees to be representatives of the company on LinkedIn. These representatives should frequently introduce products, post questions and recommendations, and reach out to potential venders and customers. Any questions answered on LinkedIn should be incorporated into RSS feed readers.
2. Optimize your employees profiles: Your company page may look fabulous with lots of information and logos. However, it's much more effective if your employees maintain a well-kept LinkedIn profile. All sections of the profile should be filled out and upload any recommendations.
3. Post your presentations: As I mentioned before, LinkedIn has been constantly updating its features. One of the newest function allows companies to upload presentations. If your company has a new product or recommendations, video presentation is a great way to promote and gain presence online.

Additionally, LinkedIn provides their own tutorial to optimize use. Large companies should consider setting up a tutorial session with a LinkedIn representative to unify your employees presence online.

Social Media and their Strategic Use II - Twitter

The current second largest social media is Twitter. This microblogging service, which began in 2006, allowed users to send out messages (Tweets) to ones friends (followers). Today, twitter is ubiquitous in all industries and a must-have tool for business. Let's explore what Twitter has to offer for your company. 

What is it?

Twitter is a social networking service that allows its users to send out "tweets," which are text-based messages up to 140 characters. According to the creator, Jack Dorsey, the literal definition of Twitter is "a short burst of inconsequential information." With this, the social media grew to 500 million existing accounts and 500 million tweets sent per day.

How is it used?
Unlike other popular social networks out there, Twitter allows business to perform real-time marketing. This type of PR is eye-catching and enables business to attract targeted customers groups at the right time. From local stores to big companies, Twitter is a great tool to build your brand and maintain customer loyalty.

Unlike other social media out there, Twitter is extremely simple to set up. Present your business by creating an account and linking the page to your other online presences. Increase your network by "following" other Twitter accounts and starting Tweeting away. Make sure to use # and @ sparingly to interact with your audience.

Since Twitter accounts are simple to use, let's study the effective use by looking at 5 examples of popular brands using Twitter:

1. Dell: Dell maintains multiple Twitter accounts, each meant for different promotional tweets, in order to target specific groups of customers @Dell @DellSMBnews @DellOutlet @DellEnterprise
2. Starbucks: Starbucks constantly offers new promotions to their Twitter followers @StarbucksStore
3. JetBlue: JetBlue Airways alerts any schedule changes or turbulence updates on their Twitter account @JetBlue
4. Comcast: Comcast offers customer support on Twitter. Although many companies also offer customer services via Twitter, Comcast is unique in that they have detail profiles on the customer support staff @comcastcares 
   
5. American Express: The credit company partnered up with Twitter to allow customers to purchase items by Tweeting. Users can type a special hashtag (i.e. #BuyAmexGiftCard25) to make the purchase @AmericanExpress

SEC allows companies to release key information on Social Media

Breaking news: The Securities and Exchange Commission recently announced that companies may announce key information, that would be an interest of investors. Under the new rule, companies can release materials through social network sites as long as the investors are informed ahead of time which channel will be used.

The latest guidance by SEC followed Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, revealed company materials on Facebook last July. Hastings had posted on Facebook that Netflix had streamed 1 billion hours of movies and TV shows in a single month. The result? Netflix's shares rose more than 13% that day from $70.45 to $81.72, which was the stock's highest level in two months.

This method of sharing was used by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, on March 25th. CEO of the electric-car maker tweeted "Really exciting @TeslaMotors announcement coming on Thursday. Am going to put my money where my mouth is in v major way." That Monday, right after his tweet, Tesla's shares rose 2.4% to $38.40, while Russell 1000 Index advanced 10%.

The rise in stock prices is clear evidence of how important these information is to investors, and how effective social media was in delivering the news. What does it mean for day-to-day practices at companies?
For now, companies won't jump to making important announcements solely on social media channels. The main concern is that Twitter names and handles can easily be faked. Therefore companies will stick to the traditional method with key information. However, there is an overall support for the new move by the SEC. With the growth of social media and the evidence provided by Netflix and Tesla, companies will gravitate towards Facebook and Twitter, eliminating the need for official press release.

What does it mean for investors? They simply have to "like" or "follow" the company to obtain information, instead of digging through SEC filings and tracking the news.

Different Kinds of Social Media and their Strategic Use I - Facebook

As mentioned in my introductory post, social media and successful business strategy are inseparable. Social media is redefining the way businesses think about customer experiences they provide. By monitoring social media channels, business can manage its customer loyalty and brand perception. How? To answer that question, I will look into top three social media channels and their purpose. Let's begin with the biggest social network out there - Facebook.com

What is it?
With over 1 billion active monthly users, 50 million pages, and 10 million apps, Facebook is without a doubt the biggest social network in the market. It allows you to create a page for an individual or for a business, and you can build your network by adding friends.

How is it used?
Once you set up your business page, your facebook wall can be used as a community facilitator. The foremost benefit of a facebook page is that it's a simple method to introduce your business. Anyone with a Facebook account (virtually everyone) can access your business page to find locations, business hours, team members, products and services. Additionally, following are the top 5 facebook functions used by business to create a buzz:

1. Company Announcements/Newsletters - Facebook page allows you to make company announcements as wall posts and would notify those who have "liked" your page. This is a great way to publish press release or positive company changes without constantly writing emails to your customers. By writing frequent wall posts, you will keep your company in the minds of your customers. If, your company prefers to send emails or e-newsletters, Facebook allows you to add a software like MailChimp that allows your fans to enter their email address when they are visiting your business page.
2. Check-in Deals - Following another popular social media channel, Foursquare, Facebook recently began allowing people to check-in on their mobile app. Often times when customers check-in at a location, they will receive a certain deal offered by the business. Companies (mostly franchised) would utilize this function to motivate customers, and by checking-in, it leads to word-of-mouth marketing.
3. Coordinate Special Events - Again, Facebook allows a simple way of creating an event for your company and sending out invites. You can create a company wide event just for the employees, or you can create a public event and invite practically everyone on the Social Network. A custom tab on your facebook page will allow you to provide all the information of the event, including a map to the event location.
4. Contests - Running a contest is the simplest way to increase visibility and grow your fan number. Majority of the time, companies run contests to win a prize through their Facebook page. I've seen many restaurants and stores that will give you a code on your receipt that you can enter on the business' facebook once you "like" the page. If you want something more complex, Facebook also allows you to create an app for the contest.
5. Product/Service Testing - Your facebook page can be a great way to introduce a new product or service and obtain feedback. By posting a product/service catalogue on your page, customers can freely learn about the product/service, and give feedback by leaving comments. Furthermore, you can create a whole new page for the product/service to obtain "likes" and increase popularity.

Facebook.com is an obvious choice of social media channel to use for all businesses. It is already a huge network and it's simple to use. Unlike traditional marketing, Facebook allows your business to provide everything that would be on your company website, newsletters, and chain emails to be all on a single page. Increasing visibility and growing your customer base is as simple as clicking a "like" button. Through the network, one person's "like" will be announced to all of his or her friends, which performs as a word-of-mouth marketing. All company activities on Facebook is sent as a notification to your "fans." By simply maintaining and grooming your business page, Facebook notifications acts as a gentle reminder to keep your company on the minds of your customers.

What is all the BUZZ?

Welcome again to Sals Social Society! For my first post, I want to start off by defining the topics that will be discussed throughout my blog. First things first, what is the definition of social media? Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Social Media as "forms of electronic communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other contents." Popular forms of social media today include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, and Pinterest. Hence, I am currently using social media to deliver my thoughts on social media and its impact on business.

Secondly, what is a business? For the purpose of this blog, "business" will be any entity that requires a marketing strategy in order to achieve its goals -- i.e. corporations, banks, restaurants, an individual, and even social media channels themselves.

Now that we have the two definitions, let's discuss the main idea behind my blog -- Social media's impact on business. As I further develop my blog, I will be discussing the various kinds of social media and its uses, the strategies adopted by different business entities, what were some of the most successful use of social media, what flopped, and why?

The importance of social media to a business today is indescribable. Unlike the traditional internet, Social media allows two way communication in many forms including B2B and B2C. Prior to social media, companies would simply utilize their websites, which in many cases were expensive and only allowed one-to-many dialogs. With the launch of Friendster in 2002, followed by MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn, social media began to expand. With this spread, social media allowed businesses to deliver contents inexpensively and at an accelerated speed. Nowadays, social media marketing strategy is a must have, and companies within the same industry compete to gather the most social attraction.

Beyond marketing and advertising, social media has also helped with internal structure of businesses. More and more companies are using social media to build teams, share information, hold meetings and solve problems. As long as the network continues to grow, social media will remain a convenient and an efficient tool for a business.