What Social Media does for businesses
Social media continues to make inroads into everyday business practices. Yet I still find myself spending a lot of time explaining the value and benefit of a social media program (notice I did not say "campaign"). I know that many of you Social Media professionals out there face the same problem. Chris Brogan's recent post entitled "What Social Media Does Best" does a great job of enumerating the many ways companies large and small, for profit and non-profit, can benefit from a well-crafted plan. You can check the post for yourself, but here are a few items on the list that I thought deserved highlighting:
- Social networks can amass like-minded people around shared interests with little external force, no organizational center, and a group sense of what is important and what comes next.
- Social news sites show the popularity of certain information, at least within certain demographics.
- Social networks make for great ways to understand the mindset of the online consumer, should that be of value to you.
- Online versions of your materials and media, especially in formats that let you share, mean that you’re equipping others to run with your message, should that be important (like if you’re a marketer).
- Online versions of your materials and media are searchable, and help Google help you find new visitors / customers / employees.
- Conversations spread around, adding metadata and further potential business value.
As the first commenter elegantly laid out, social media fundamentally changes the way that people discover information, communicate and connect.
