Social Networking is becoming a necessity for every 21st century business

It has recently come to light that it is the small and medium-sized businesses who are using social networks to win new customers more successfully than larger firms. A new survey from global workspace provider Regus in June has shown that 42% of UK SMEs are winning new business using social media compared to 35% of firms with 250+ employees.

 “Social networking has finally come into its own in the commercial world, with the SME sector taking full advantage of their business contacts and commercial agility to surge ahead of the game when it comes to finding new customers. More large firms may testify to the importance of social media in today’s business environment and actively devote marketing budget towards the channel, but the fact remains that smaller firms are more successful in converting networking practices into customer acquisition.“says Celia Donne, Regional Director at Regus.

According to the research, half of the SME sector and slightly fewer large firms (46%) encourage employees to join business social networks. The study clearly shows that social networking has evolved from something that looks good on your webpage to a marketing necessity for any 21st century business.  The majority of SMEs (65%) and large firms (71%) agree that without social media activity, their marketing initiatives will not be as successful.

“As businesses in all size brackets emerge from the downturn, they are increasingly reconsidering pre-recession working practices and opting for more flexible, competitive strategies. Among these, the use of business social media is proving extremely successful and suited to the fast pace of recovery. Particularly in the UK where one in three social network users is a fan, follower or friend of a company page or profile, firms should expect to see an increasing proportion of marketing budget being destined to this activity.”  Celia Donne again.

For any  company, be you small, medium sized or large it is becoming increasingly clear that it would be foolish to let your marketing department  ignore the upward trend in engaging with Social networks to develop your business.

wired2create can deliver all your social media requirements providing a platform for flexible more competitive strategies to help you develop your business.

The following chart extracted from the Regus research is a very useful check list for reviewing your marketing strategy:

Proportion of companies…	UK	SME	250+ Employees
… actively using business social networks to interact with, and inform, their existing customers	48.0%	48%	47%
…successfully using business social networks to find new customers	41%	42%	35%
…encouraging employees to join business social networks	50%	50%	46%
…actively devoting marketing budget to social networking activity in order to reach customers	33%	31%	40%
...believing that marketing must now use social networks, in addition to traditional marketing techniques, to be successful	66%	65%	71%
…believing that companies who only use social networking and online campaigns, and who ignore traditional media/techniques, will find that their campaigns do not work Source: Regus	61%	59%	67%

Networking is becoming a necessity for every 21st century business

The Ultimate guide to getting people to 'Like' your Facebook page

Facebook businesses pages are undoubtedly a great way of getting your brand or message to a large specific audience, but getting people to ‘Like’ your page is not as easy as it seems.

So why do you need people to ‘Like’ your page? This is because every time you market your company or brand on your Facebook wall it will appear in the time-line wall of people who have liked your page, so the more people you get to like your page, the more visibility you will achieve for your company.

Getting traffic to your Facebook business page takes considerable time and consideration before launching. Identifying your target audience is probably the easy part, and then the trickier part is driving that specific group to ‘Like’ your business page.

Examples of good Facebook campaigns

A good Facebook business page relies heavily on the marketing campaign driving your brand or business message forward. For example Tesco, one of the largest food retailers in the UK have managed to entice over 240,000 people to ‘Like’ their page, giving them an incalculable potential audience every time they post something about their brand and service on Facebook.

So how have they achieved this? Through mass marketing across their website, social media sites and advertising – everything they market has links to their Facebook page with reasons to ‘Like’ their page. Companies like Tesco a have huge advertising budget, which are not normally available to SME’s, however social media gives SME’s more chance than ever of getting to the top of their industry, if used effectively.

Tesco offer promotions which are only available on their Facebooksite, such as their most recent campaign, which encourages people who like their site to elect a friend to win 5000 club card points if they ‘Like’ their page, other marketing ideas have been winnning a galaxy bar by entering a competition and so fourth. Sites can also offer a recruitment page – very topical at the moment and on-line customer services, which is another issue we will discuss in a later blog.  

Next a UK clothes retailer have also achieved a strong following on Facebook, by having special offers only available on their Facebook site, such as product discount codes, free delivery when you ‘Like’ their page.

These types of Facebook campaigns do not only enticecustomers to ‘Like’ their Facebook page, it also encourages them to keep on liking them, as they offer a continuous stream of special offers to followers.

Other companies are donating money to charity each time someone ‘Likes’ their Facebook page, but this needs to be thought about carefully – such as which geographical area does your business cover, keep it local if you can as this helps with SEO, and think about finding a charity which relates in some way to your business. For example an estate agent could offer money to a homeless charity.

Facebook also offers advertising to get your page noticed, but this can work out to be expensive, especially for smaller companies.

So the key items for consideration are:

What are you trying to sell?

What is your target audience in terms of Geographic and Demographic?

What is your USP?

What do you want to achieve from your Facebook site?

How are you going to get people to be interested in liking your page?

How you are going to design your multi-functioning integrated site on Facebook

At wired2create we are specialists in this field, we can advise you on all aspects of driving traffic to your Facebook site, as well as designing bespoke Facebook mini-sites, for more information visit our social media website or send us an email @ mel@wired2create.com