Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Bebo, LinkedIn, YouTube - how many of these inescapable social media platforms have you signed up to? One or two, perhaps? Unfortunately, this is simply not good enough. Because far from being the waste
of time you perhaps berate your staff or your teenage children for perusing endlessly, social networks are actually an innovative way of bringing benefits to you and your business.
Online social networks are not just the preserve of teenagers and hip elders trying to keep their ear to the ground. Facebook, for example, says it has more than 250m users worldwide from a broad age range, while LinkedIn claims 40m professionals have signed up to its platform. Social media has gone beyond the niché and is now fully embedded in the mainstream. Put all the users together and, clearly, it is a significant resource to be tapped into.
People use social networks to discuss anything and everything and these users and their conversations are searchable. Bernhard Warner, director at Custom Communication and social media consultant for Radar DDB UK, explains: "These used to be conversations by the water cooler. Now that they're online, they're archiveable and you can count it."
So all of the blog posts, comments, tweets, ratings, diggs, recommendations, video rants - they can be aggregated through a search to offer a real-time insight into a given subject. Whether you're trying to score wins in the form of new business, brand building or simply identifying trends, social networks are an incredibly powerful tool. The difficult bit is that you have to comply with the culture and terms of the community.
"It's a big change for companies that are used to traditional marketing methods," says Warner "Traditionally, they've been in charge of the message. The new rule is you either engage with the public or you don't have a public."
The simplest way to benefit from social networks is to use them to place a finger on the pulse of your industry by following the conversations of others. One of the great things about Twitter is searching tweets on a particular subject.
For example, a search of tweets on ‘transpromo' turns up messages from lots of people going to the Transpromo Summit, so instantly you have an idea of who's going and what the main talking points will be. The messages it picks up are also ‘live' in the sense that they are being tweeted as and when you search. Do the same search on Google or a similar search engine and you would not get such an insight as there is so much more information for it to sort through and results from years ago could be dragged up that are not in the least bit relevant.
Another platform proving itself useful to business is LinkedIn. Steve Emerson, partner at Turning Point Integration, uses it extensively.
He says: "From a sales perspective, just finding the name of a person is enough. But we also use it for disseminating product information, or when we have vacancies, we use it for that."
Social networks, with their waiting band of willing users, can also be a great alternative to focus groups for product feedback. "It's much better than focus groups," says Warner. "You've got to see how scientifically dodgy focus groups are - these are people that have turned up for a free cup of tea and a biscuit."
However, simply keeping an eye on your brand or industry online is only one half of the bargain.
"Just observing is a bit like not answering the phone," warns Fresh Egg social media engineer Claire Stokoe.
"It's all about having some kind of influence in the community. It's not about shouting the loudest, that's like taking the megaphone and not letting anyone else have it," adds Warner. "By getting your name out there you do all of the other things in establishing a thought leadership position within the community. Before, you would have to be on a trade industry panel, now you don't need that."
That means finding appropriate groups and making connections where you can make a genuine contribution to a debate, whether it's from your own knowledge or from pointing people at relevant sources.
A good place to start is to use community mapping, advises Stokoe. Start at the centre with your business and map out all the areas on the web where people are talking about terms that are relevant to you and could benefit from your expertise.
Quantifiable results
You would be forgiven for thinking this sounds like a lot of business talk, without much in the way of quantifiable results. But you don't have to search too far for stories of printers jumping on social media services and making them pay.
Tim Messom, who runs art printer Ken Messom Creative Artwork (KMCA), was facing bankruptcy earlier this year, so as a last resort he set up a group on Facebook called ‘Save Tim From Bankruptcy' offering ‘mates rates' prices.
"It started with my immediate group of friends," he explains, "but I've now got around 18,000 people across two groups."
Around 80% of his business now comes in via Facebook and Messom says it is on all day in the office. He always replies to posts on his Facebook wall and he's now looking at new ways to push content to the groups. "My story and situation appealed to people," he says.
Warner agrees: "The ones that do it best are the ones with their backs to the wall - they often have the clearest message."
The recession has thrown up quite a few companies in just that situation and Stokoe says they should be following Messom's lead and embracing social media.
"In a recession, people want to be totally confident about brands. Smaller companies can establish that confidence by having one-to-one relationships using social media," she says.
Emerson is also confident about the prospects of potentially winning business through using the right social media channel in the right manner. "It's inevitable that we will go a full sales cycle through LinkedIn," he adds. Lateral Group chief executive Nick Dixon, agrees. He has used LinkedIn to form an industry group to discuss various subjects. "We're experimenting with it," says Dixon. "[The group] is not about us as a business; it's independent, it's there for the industry."
Industry body Fespa has gone a step further and built an entire social network for digital wide-format printers on Ning.com. The ‘Wide Network' already has 1,100 members, says marketing director Marcus Timson.
"Screen printing is already established - the network is already there," he says. "But digital wide-format attracts printers that may not have a printing heritage at all. This is a generation that didn't have a way to connect except at exhibitions."
Timson describes running a social network as "a bit like being at a party. You won't get to speak to everyone, but you can set the tone".
"It's about the people, not the brand so much," he adds. "We don't have branding all over it, so users feel comfortable that they can create the content."
And for Fespa it's proving an invaluable way of canvassing opinion. "We're finding the wisdom of the crowd really works," says Timson.
Hazard warning
This approach is clearly working for Fespa, but there are dangers attached to social media if you get it wrong. For one, you can spend too much time reading online conversations without a clear goal for what you want to achieve.
"I probably spend an hour a day just information gathering," says Emerson. "But the danger is you can end up not doing your day job - you can get sucked into the vortex that is the internet."
Stokoe adds that getting the tone right is crucial. "If you're trying to sell something, then being upfront and blatant is not on. But conversely you shouldn't maintain radio silence. It can be tiny things such as ‘they never called me back' that could be answered by one of your competitors, and that can be equally damaging."
Despite these reservations, the benefits of signing up for and engaging with social media are clear. It can help you to expand your network of contacts, grow your business and just as importantly, especially in the current recession, it's completely free of charge. So get on your computer and start tweeting, updating, blogging, profile building and Facebook chatting - it's not only fun, but your bottom line may just thank you for it as well.
TOP TIPS: USEFUL WEB TOOLS
bit.ly Allows you to create shorter versions of long web addresses so you can publish them in services such as Twitter. It also logs traffic
netvibes.com Gather all your news, feeds and social networks in one web page
ping.fm Write once, publish many – this service publishes your updates to a range of social media services
Sitemention.com Hooks into a range of social media services and reports back on discussions about you, your company or brand
