Why Businesses Should Embrace Social Media

When you need to find information, what’s the first place you look at? “The internet” I guess. The same applies to your clients and potential clients. Now reports say the second most visited website as of 26 march 2012 is Facebook, the social media giant, just after Google ( of course). But reports as of April 2011 have it that it had toppled Google as the most frequently visited site. Chances are, your competitors are plying their wares on the World Wide Web through such social media. If you aren’t using social media for your business, your potential customer base is passing you by.


New research states that local marketers are engaging with Facebook like never before.  According to small-business social network Merchant Circle as of 2011, 70% of small businesses now use Facebook to reach consumers. This was up from 50% for 2010 and is more than the 66% of them that say they currently use Google search advertising. So what this means is that Facebook now ranks as the most popular marketing tool among local businesses.

Consider this:

1. Fifty percent of active Facebook users log in at least daily and spend close to an hour a day and are posting more than 500 updates a second.
2. There are 1.6 million active Facebook pages and more than 350 million active users
3. When it comes to Twitter, there are close to 20 million users who are posting an average of 600 tweets a second

That is a lot of information being exchanged. When you take those numbers and couple it with your competition who might be taking advantage of blogging as a way to spread the word about themselves, you simply need to be swimming in that information ocean, don’t you think?

So clearly, Social Media is NOT a fad. It is not going anywhere. When I first started writing this article, I went really deep into what social media was, the individual platforms and why you should care. Ultimately, none of that mattered because you only need to know one simple fact. Social Media, as a whole, has completely changed our culture forever. What people thought was a fad has now become a complete ‘culture shift’.

The social media phenomenon is global and it is not "just used by teenagers and young adults". This is why businesses should realize the social platform is an increasingly important platform for consumers to learn about companies' branding and problem resolution. However, most companies are "still in the 'crawl' stage of the crawl-walk-run continuum" in catering to this social demand. This is because they, particularly their legal departments (IT could be one of them), are struggling to figure out where and how social media should be managed.

Very good examples of businesses who have embraced such are Marriott Hotels, online travel agent Expedia and budget carrier AirAsia can be said to be doing a "terrific job" using social media to serve many of their customers' needs such as marketing, promotions and customer service through social channels. Malaysian Airlines, for one, allowed customers to book their flights and check-in online on Facebook with MHbuddy. According to Amin Khan, executive vice president of commercial strategy at Malaysia Airlines, the MHbuddy app functions as its "ticket office on social media", giving users greater convenience when booking flights and sharing their plans with online friends. Clearly, social media is a proven tool in marketing your business.

Here are five other reasons to jump into social media:

1. Stay up to date on your industry
2. Track what others are saying about your business and respond to those comments
3. Offer emergency updates or jump in when a breaking trend happens in your industry
4. Offer amazing customer service through your social media presence. Ask and answer questions
5. Drive traffic to your website

I will give you enough time to look at the above and consider embracing social media. If you decide to embrace it as a business, check out our next IPC Bulletin (May Issue) for more on Why and How Businesses can embrace social media.

By Lovemore Jokonya

(IT Consultant) For views and comments email lovemore@ipcconsultants.com or call +263 4 481946-8