Although social media has been around for several years now I still find that many companies aren’t taking full advantage of it. As I meet leaders from various companies that do a wide array of different things I’m finding three common groups emerge in relation to where they are with social media:
- They’re late to the social media game entirely (and they know it.)
- They have only dabbled in social media over the last few years and are still unsure about what it can do for them.
- They’ve tried it but feel like that got hoodwinked into some false promises about what social media actually delivers.
I would argue that social media is still widely misunderstood and often poorly executed. Even companies who are doing many of the right things with social media are still not taking full advantage of the full opportunities of social media. The fact that we live in a world in which you can connect directly to your customer, hear from them and then change something about your product or service as a result is huge…yet so few companies are fully capitalizing on this.
Seven Things You Can Bank On
I was in a meeting today thinking about this reality and the similar conversations I have with companies and started outlining the very real, tangible things my clients get from their social media efforts. They’re seeing wonderful results but I’m discovering these are not the general rule for most companies and their social media investment. It’s time to raise your expectations on what social media will do. If your company isn’t seeing all of these seven things then something’s not right.
1. Increased revenue.
2. Reduced marketing expenses.
3. Insight from customers to create better products/services.
4. Better customer service.
5. Increased customer satisfaction.
6. More brand awareness from prospects.
7. More brand loyalty from customers.
I should note that if your social media efforts are less than a year old you may not see some of these come to fruition yet, but if you’ve been doing social media for at least a year, you should indications of all of these. Every business wants to know what moves the needle and social media moves the needle when you understand how to do it the right way.
If you’re disappointed in your social media efforts thus far perhaps your strategy or execution is the problem more than anything. It’s worth looking into because there are too many companies proving that social media isn’t a fad and it’s growing the business in many ways.
