Mr Architect – the world awaits you…….and Mrs, Miss, Ms and Master…

Social Media is both fascinating and daunting, creating a sky rocket of activity amongst business people in the last few years. Fascinating because of the wonder of the visible functionality and daunting because of the learning curve and time investment required.

And the pace quickens! Each month there seems to be some new app or technology appearing in our in-box.  Our relatively new friends in the guise of media technologies have been developed to reach or communicate with a very wide audience. These amazing technologies available for people today will harness huge benefit for your own business. If we neglect them we are going to lose out on the potential to connect and engage with both an existing client base as well as a previously untouched audience.

Look Before You Leap

But beware, before you run headlong into trying to use the myriad of technologies available within the social media arena – stop and think! What are the best and most effective tools for your business? Use them well and use them wisely. Implement and then test the results. Review the available media and then either learn to use them or outsource to those in the know. It is certainly more cost effective and will be up and running in half the time.

You should start by drawing up your social media plan of action and then research the capability of each technology and how it fits in to your business plan.

Social Media Is Social

I feel it is important to stress here that it is all about social media. Social media is about engaging, connecting and networking with others. As people connect with you and you with them they will begin to discover how much they can trust you. We do business with people we trust. That’s my point.

A Social Media Revolution

We are seeing social media grow at an exponential rate. In my opinion we are not going to be experts in all of these technologies. So, my advice is to choose the best media for your own business and run with it.

Statistics

Social Media Examiner set out some statistics in November 2011 [these have probably increased since then quite significantly]. Facebook had over 800 million users with customers embracing social media as part of their lives including the over 50s who are adapting at staggering rates. Here are some statistics on social media usage within the UK alone. 37M users on Facebook, 32M users on Youtube, 15M Twitterers and 8M using LinkedIn. If we conservatively say only 10% of business uses these platforms we have a huge audience and potential people base we can connect with and ultimately call customers. The world awaits you!