Social Media’s Impact On Business

I recently wrote a blog about how to use social media as a business tool offering the do’s and don’ts of social media marketing. So now I want to share with you just how big this is. To fully wrap your head around what social media is and how it is changing the market place you need to fully understand the impact social media is having in people’s lives. People now check their social media sites more than their email. What does that mean? Social media has become their means of communication.

Lets take a walk……Did you know that 96% of Generation Y has joined a social network? Social Networks have changed who we are and what we do. 80% of companies are using Linkedin as their primary tool to find employees. A social network!!! That’s crazy. Just a few years ago it was questionable to have a social network because employers would be able to find you and research your life. Now it’s a must have to get a job. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year old females. Facebook is so big that if it were a country it would be the 4th largest country in the world. Barack Obama used social media to win votes, and was elected our President. He even admitted in a speech that it helped. The President also addresses America and other Countries via Youtube.com.

Social media can be your friend or it can totally destroy your business. If you mistreat a customer it will only take a few seconds for someone to post on Facebook or Twitter about how bad your service is. Remember, people that will be reading those bad posts about your business will also be the friends and family of the people posting. These are trusted reviews. Yes, this happens all the time! So what can you do to make sure this never happens to you? Well, you could take all cell phones from anyone who enters your store and delete Facebook and twitter. No, seriously! Now more then ever, customer service is important. If you build your brand online to be trustworthy before something ever got out you have a leg to stand on.

Check this out…

- There is a running clock on how many tweets from twitter have happened and are happening at gigatweet. As I am writing this they are at 4,339,916,800 and it changed a log from the beginning of this post to the end.

- Over 100,000,000 users log on to Facebook at least once each day.

Source “The Future Ebuzz”

These things tell us that it is not important to have your business on social media but it is vital. In 5 years it will be as important to have a social space as it is to have your website in Google’s index. Facebook is about to launch a new search feature that will make it immediately one of the largest search engines in the world.

Hello! Can you here me out there? I am calling all old school business owners…..learn this stuff because if you don’t you will have to move. Businesses have to change with the times. The power is in the hands of who has the most friends and followers on social networks now.

That’s a wrap! I would love your feedback on this article.