A Simple Explanation of Why Your Business Should Engage in Social Media...No, Really
We hear this all the time: “I know my company needs to get into social media, but I don’t really know why.”
The answer is in the title of the article, Nearly 70% of Online Adults Use Social Media, Often Research Products. The article is based on the August/September 2008 Insight Report (PDF) from MarketTalk.
The article pulls out highlights of the report, including a Social Media usage breakdown by generation, which breaks down as you might imagine with 20-somethings as most frequent user of SM and seniors the least. What may surprise you is the influence of SM in buying habits.
According to the report:
- 33% of visitors say they visit these sites to engage in product research before making a purchasing decision.
- Affluent visitors (with annual incomes of more than $75K) are most likely to research products online before buying (43%).
- Baby Boomer visitors are significantly more likely than other groups to read or post comments about products and services on these sites (37%).
- Baby Boomers (63%), along with Generation X (59%), are significantly more likely than other groups to visit the corporate websites of product or service providers.
- 47% of all respondents say that these sites have influenced their decision to purchase particular brands or services to at least some extent.
Basically one-third of visitors use SM to research products and half of all respondents said that blogs, communities and social networks influenced their buying decision.
So when you hear people talking about the “conversations” you should be joining, this is what they’re talking about. People are out there talking about your business and the talk is influencing their buying habits. You can try to move that influence to your advantage or you stand on the side and hope for the best, but it is happening.
Comments
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Think in terms of “bad driver just cut me off” instead of “just 70-272 got served papers for a lawsuit.” The first example connects 642-061 people and encourages dialogue. Who hasn’t been cut off by a bad driver? The second example has the potential to make people 650-251 uncomfortable or turn them “off” to your brand.
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The etymology of "business" relates to the state of being busy either as an individual or society as a whole, doing commercially viable and profitable work. The term "business" has at least three usages, depending on the scope — the singular usage (above) to mean a particular company or corporation, the generalized usage to refer to a particular market sector, such as "the music business" and compound forms such as agribusiness, or the broadest meaning to include all activity by the community of suppliers of goods and services. However, the exact definition of business, like much else in the philosophy of business, is a matter of debate.
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