Social Media’s Impact on business growth and useful tips

The evolution of internet throughout the years was massive where it started off communicating only with the people you know to the current scenario whereby it globalized the people in interacting with people around the world.

In the current business world, the usage of the social media is highly importance as it contributes to the success of the business.

As there are many available social media, the key point is to achieve the desired result regardless of the type of the social media use. Easy to use the web, secure and efficient is key factors to look after in choosing the media.

The present and future generations will spend most of their time on devices and media such as Facebook, twitter, chatting, YouTube. As business competition become stiffer, more consumer consume on their mobile devices, electronic gadgets while commuting to save time.

Therefore, business needs and relies heavily on social media in order to survive. The key word is connecting with their consumers, competitors, the market as the social media will become the lifestyle for the new generation.

The web has grown so fast and tightly woven into the normal lifestyle of almost everybody. According to Ayo Oyedotun(a blogger)  the number of active users of Facebook is already over 900 million, now pushing 1 billion; that’s about 14% of the population of the world. Also, Twitter is expected to hit 500 million registered users in the next few months. LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube and other social platforms are growing in leaps and bounds. Obviously, people are becoming more comfortable using online social platforms to interact with one another.

The present generation of consumers and the next generation spend most of their time on mobile devices and computers. They tend to find things like chatting, texting, sending instant messages and making other short continuous conversations more convenient than emailing or writing long letters. They spend most of their time with laptops, netbooks, smartphones, tablets and other new gadgets. Secondly as business competition gets stiffer, more and more people tend to consume media (news, entertainment etc) on their mobile devices while commuting in order to save time. Hence, the new best place to stay connected with team members, employees and partners is on these devices.

Therefore, you cannot continue to neglect social media and expect your business to survive for long. No matter the size of your business, getting involved and using social media is your sure bet towards mastering the language of this generation and the coming generations. To be frank, this is just the beginning of the new lifestyle of the world, and social media is not going away any soon. So get your business to adjust to this new culture and enjoy better business results.

Online tools & communities

Emails, SMS, face books; professional and communities networks are some of the social media tools available. From across the Globe, all information is being access easily. Business can create database and clientele and customers can be update of products.

Few major social media tools based on their relevance to business:

WordPress

You can use WordPress to build great blogs and really powerful and dynamic websites or both. As a small business owner, you can begin with their free domain name and webhost and later upgrade to a personal one. WordPress blogs are well optimized for search engines, and they integrate excellently with social networks. That’s why WordPress powers many of the sites you see online.

Blogger

A great alternative to WordPress is Blogger, which is a free blog publishing service provided by Google. It lets you create blogs for one or more people. The blogs are hosted free by Google at a sub-domain of blogspot.com. Like WordPress blogs, Blogger blogs can be built on very low budget.

Facebook

Aside the regular chatting and messaging, you can use Facebook to create brand pages for your business, install relevant extensions and use it to keep your fans abreast of your business updates. You can set up a vibrant discussion group for communicating with your partners or customers. Having a Facebook business page is indispensable for your business. Currently, Facebook has over 900 million active users, making it a place you should go and spend time with your customers and not lose them to competitors.

Twitter

Twitter is excellent for disseminating short information and keeping track of discussion trends around the world. It is a real time information network that connects users to latest news, stories, opinions and ideas. It lets you send and receive text-based posts of up to 140 characters.  Twitter currently has over 140 million active users and is pushing 500 million registered users according to Twopchart.

Google Plus

One of the best business features of Google Plus is their Hangout. It is a free but powerful video chat service for up to 10 persons. With the relevant extensions, you can share documents and much more while video chatting. While ten persons can participate in the video chat, many more people can watch the discussion.

YouTube

Today, many people share videos on social networks. This presents a unique opportunity for your business to get new customers and engage existing ones. By uploading short videos to YouTube and sharing with friends, you will be taking advantage of the over 800 million unique visits to YouTube every month from all over the world.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is an indispensable tool for monitoring your business reputation online. It is a free tool from Google that works excellently well for monitoring your brand. Every time your business is mentioned on any website on the Internet, Google will send you an email. You can choose to receive the emails as it happens, daily or weekly. You can also use Google Alerts to monitor the mentions of specific products, brand names or name of a person.

Engage your audience

Using social media is a great way to make your business seem friendlier and to form close relationships with the customers. By engaging the audience you can interact with them directly, ask for customer feedback, and keep them updated with your latest happenings and news. By adding appealing content you can develop interest of your audience/customers. You can upload your latest marketing campaigns, questionnaires for customer feedback, discount deals or seasonal sales. Traditional marketing is now out of trend. Printing costs more and consumes more time. Just to get saved from this hassle, businesses have moved now online.

Creating a Strong Online Presence and Maintaining It

Your website and blog form the home-base and fortress of your online presence. They are the best place to get fans to connect with your brand more deeply. They are like the headquarters of your business, built and furnished to your taste; whereas other social media destinations are like outlets of your company, where you try to attract and retain more customers. Your blog and website are always yours to fully control, but Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media destinations can be tweaked and changed by the providers. So, get your website and blog in order as much as you can.

It’s quick and easy to set up a profile on social media sites and then publish your content. Once your content is published; people tend to like it or share the post that helps you reaching more audience creating a multiple effect. The more interesting the posts are, the more people tend to share it with their friends and the larger the amount of audience you reach. Discussions take place that also helps in getting an honest opinion of customers and much can be done later to remove the drawbacks.

Some ways to keep your audience engaged:

· Articles/ Blogging/Videos: To interest your readers give them a piece to read after a day or two. They’ll surely love you for that if you keep them good tips, some informative content and really exciting news.

· Competitions: Competitions will increase more hype about your business page. More people will enter the contest and this will give them a chance to learn your products in a better way.

· News/ Happenings: Update your customers of any events, updates in products, opening of new stores, new products etc.

· Special Offers: Customers are always looking forward for some incentives and giveaways from your end. They would definitely like some discount deals or complimentary gifts.

Source :http://sajidaligillani.hubpages.com/hub/Social-Medias-Impact-On-business-growth & Social Media: New Tools for Business Growth by Ayo Oyedotun: professional blogger and freelance writer