By Craig Allan
'FaceBook has over 800 million active monthly users (Dec 2011) across the globe, if it was a country in it's own right it would be the 3rd largest in the world! Social Media sites have become an effective way of businesses to communicate with their customers in a time effective way.'
New Article: Challenges for Business in a Facebook World - Read Here
(UPDATE: As of Oct 2013 Facebook has 1.5 Billion users)
Facebook and other Social Media sites are quickly becoming a valid and effective communication channel for businesses of all sizes, giving customers to opportunity to involve themselves in policy development, offer consumer insights to firms and also to be the first to hear about special deals on offer.
Social Media can serve as an additional channel to use as part of your existing marketing communications; press releases, newsletters, blogs, FaceBook posts and Twitter tweets will reinforce your message, but also deliver your message to additional listeners using various mediums.
FaceBook, for example, caters for business organisations very well with groups and actual organisation pages; key personnel within the organisation can continue a discussion topic by supplementing additional views on the same subject. Additionally Facebook has a relatively new, yet cost effective advertising offering that can increase a businesses reach.
According to global research company Nielsen, FaceBook, YouTube and Wikipedia are the top 3 social media sites around, with 22% of all time spent on the Internet visiting these and other similar sites - more than double than 12 months ago!
More than 50% of the Australian adult population are active Facebook users, making this and other Social Media platforms an ideal medium to engage with new and existing customers - the challenge to businesses is to adapt to this new communication with a shift in how to relate to the public.
Google+ has also demonstrated remarkable growth, with experts tipping 400+ million users by the end of 2012... another platform that needs serious consideration as a marketing tool.
With these staggering trends in mind, it's imperative that businesses of all sizes develop their marketing communications around social media... your customers are waiting for you!
Want to know how Visionary marketing can assist? Contact us now to discuss how we can help in developing your communications strategy - here!
