Back in December, Hootsuite distributed a blog post that was very telling about the connection between social media utilization and business growth. The blog was about the evolution of digital marketing and how these days, businesses actually cannot survive without social media and digital marketing. They drew attention to a 1995 article titled The Internet? Bah!, which not only ascertained that the web was just a fad or phase, but the article actually completely wrote off e-business as a concept. Fast forward, 21 years later and that article is now a joke. Each point that the article raised is completely dead wrong. The Hootsuite blog post was extremely insightful and perceptive.
We have extracted the main pointers and interesting concepts below, for those who have not read the full article.
• We shop, order airline tickets, make reservations and negotiate sales online and daily Social media is changing how we reach and interact with our audience (customers, clients, consumers, etc.)
• Social media tools (such as Hootsuite along with others like Tweetdeck, Hubspot, etc.), are built to help more than 10 million people and users at more than 800 of the Fortune 1000 companies manage their social media accounts
• Social tools are being used to streamline customer services (for shopping and commerce, product development, sales and HR)
Here are the hard numbers:
• Approximately 2 billion (more than a quarter of the planet) are now on social media
• Three quarters of online adults in the U.S. now use social media sites – if we are talking about millennials and young people (tomorrow’s decision-makers), that number gets much higher
• The average user logs in for nearly 1.7 hours every day or 12 hours per week
• Millennials watch more YouTube than TV
• Facebook’s 1.4 billion monthly active users around the world spend an average of 20+ minutes per day, every day, 365 days a year
• 90% of businesses see increased exposure and more than half report improved sales from social media
The article finishes off by asking why more businesses are not on board? It could be due to the increasing number of social networks that are introduced and the options that are changing. It could also be overwhelming for those who are not social media or tech-savvy. What networks are the best? How do we start using them? Is it worth the time?
If this is not convincing for investing in a social strategy, we don’t know what is! Read the full Hootsuite article here.
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