Social Media for Business

Next year will be here before we know it bringing with it a new opportunity for engaging your business in the social media sphere. In fact, we’re going to go ahead and say you should make strengthening your social media presence your top New Year’s resolution.

We could cite many reasons why your business needs social media for business use but today, we will focus on just one, very important reason. You need social media because that is where your clients are.

Did you get that? We’ll say it again, louder. Businesses use social media. And if businesses you connect with use social media, you should use social media, too. That is where your clients see value, making social media of value to you as well.

Social Media By the Numbers

Business is a numbers game and so we want to provide the numbers to prove our point. A survey of small businesses revealed that a full two-thirds of businesses say they are spending more time on social media this year than last year.  A full 46 percent of businesses spent six hours or more per week on social sites.

At the same time these businesses have ramped up their use of social media, they also report a desire to spend less time, particularly sole proprietors who do everything from running the cash register to balancing the books. These business owners say the most consuming task is finding and posting great content to their social media streams followed by learning and educating themselves about social media.

Another interesting piece of data from the survey was the social sites businesses use. Facebook, of course, is king with 90 percent of the businesses using Facebook. Twitter is a close second at 70 percent but the majority of business have yet to truly embrace LinkedIn, Google+ or Pinterest.

Finally, small business are ramping up their social media budgets with more than one-third paying for publishing and analytic tools. Anyway you look at these numbers, you will see that social media is on the rise.

Need Meets Opportunity

This is where you come in. Businesses clearly find value in social media or they wouldn’t be ramping up their social media efforts in 2013. You need to meet your clients where they live and interact, which is increasingly social media streams.

At the same time, managing social media eats up more time these businesses would like to spend on other endeavors. You can step in by offering your services, by supplying content or by helping educate clients and prospective clients about best social media practices.

Companies also need to start moving into other social media spheres, depending on their industry, to catch their customers. Find ways to help your clients move toward these other social media streams and capture more customers who find value outside of Facebook.

Meeting Customers Halfway

Another great reason to get more social in 2013 is because, whether you know it or not, your clients and prospective clients already seek you out in the social spheres. Remember, 60 percent of the buying cycle is over before a customer ever comes calling to your door.

Decision makers first educate themselves and do research on you as a company to see if they want to do business with you at all. Your social media presence will put you in front of your competitors.

The data is clear. Businesses use social media. It has value for them and their customers. This means social media has value for you as well. Resolve to make social media a top priority for your company.