Since we last wrote about social media for business, the social media universe has exploded. According to USAToday1, there are now:
- 800 million users on Facebook
- 150 million on LinkedIn
- 100 million on twitter, and
- 15 million using location service FourSquare
Who would have thought it?!
With legions of businesses of all sizes plowing time and money into social media, every business owner/CEO needs to think about what social media means to his or her business - both threats and opportunities.
Advertising ROI models have been emerging but each company still must determine how social media fits into its business model. FourSquare may be great for Starbucks but it's not likely to do much for a professional services firm where blogs and active discussion sites remain important thought-leadership building tools.
On the other side, social media has the ability to become a large (useless) time sink if committed to indiscriminately. Unless you're Jeremy Lin, it still takes time to build a following.
Consider your:
- Business model
- Marketing plan
- Available marketing tools
- Social media's place/niches among those tools
- If you decide to use social media in your marketing mix, which platform(s) are appropriate?
- What approaches to use?
- Who will do it?
- How much will it cost?
- What results should be expected?
The same principles used for other major business initiatives should be applied to social media:
- Plan
- Execute
- Monitor
- Evaluate
- Revise
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1 USA Today, February 17, 2012, p 3B
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