What Social Media Benefits for Business Can You Expect?

Many people in business and even marketers discount social media as worthless saying things like "social media traffic is low value". They are not completely wrong about that but they aren't right in their conclusion either.

Discounting social media is like saying that planes suck because you can't drive them.

Social media benefits vary depending on

the situation
the specific social site
the business you are in

but there are several general business advantages social media has.

So what kind of social media benefits for business can you expect?

Feedback
Ever wanted to get feedback before your client sues you or just switches to the competition? Who can you call? Social media! Best example: Dell Idea Storm. You don't have to set up your own site. Use existing channels like Twitter, Facebook and blogs.

Word of mouth
Ever wanted to advertise for free without it even appearing like advertising? Social media word of mouth is your friend. Best example: Apple. You don't need to be a huge or cool brand. Just search for: "Will it blend?"

Reputation
Ever wanted to be a dog? Did you know that nobody knows on the Internet that you are (not) a dog? So you can be a dog but you can be anything n the Web. Like I decided a year ago to become the guru of a new cult, the cult of SEO 2.0. How did I get there? I used a blog and social media like StumbleUpon, Sphinn, Mixx and Twitter. A year later I get invited to search conferences as a speaker and top search marketing bloggers refer to me as an expert.

New visitors
Search engines are great. They are great for bringing you targeted visitors that is people who want to get exactly what you offer. Sometimes a niche is just too small (like SEO) or the product is just too new or exotic so then you don't have enough people who search for what your offer. Then you got to attract those who are interested in something broader or similar. In my case it's web design. Only attracting the same SEO people over and over would not allow my blog to grow. That's why I broaden my focus from time to time to appeal to the people preoccupied with web design, CSS and web standards.

Relationships
While traditional media is broadcasting, social media is narrowcasting being about a message aimed at specific groups of people or even individuals. Whether it's Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter: Social networking allows you to foster a career without meeting people in real life.

This is an experiment in speed blogging. It took 30 minutes to write. Do you like it?

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October 28, 2008 · Reputation, SEO 2.0, Social Media

10 Responses

Steven October 29, 2008 at 00:13 ·

Is the speed blogging thing sarcastic? I’m surprised that other posts would take much longer than that – that seems to be about a good amount of time for a post of that length. If sarcastic, I apologize for being slow to get the joke. If not sarcastic, I apologize for being ignorant to the ways of another blogger.
andymurd October 29, 2008 at 00:16 ·

“Low value”, what rot!

Social media traffic is laser targeted, bounce rate is super-low because you’re preaching to the converted. For smaller websites, social media traffic is the most valuable because the publisher is part of the audience.

It might be different for Pepsi, but for those of us who can’t afford saturation TV advertising, I choose 200 focused visitors over 20,000 bored surfers any day.
onreact October 29, 2008 at 00:29 ·

Hey Steven: So how long do you need to write a blog post? I need 1h to 4h usually depending on size, depth, images, links and overall “value”. English is my third language, after Polish and German so I might be slower than native speakers though.

Andy: Yeah, that’s why I’m so prominent on Sphinn. I’m always gald to get the 200+ Spinners.
BadiJones October 29, 2008 at 03:49 ·

First, this is a great post, but I came here (from twitter) to see what speed blogging was all about.

I think you’re on to something, and I’ve been thinking along the same lines since I started using twitter. It has forced me to be quicker, and more to the point when writing. I like it.
onreact October 29, 2008 at 11:25 ·

Right Badi, the tweet might have been a little misleading. I might write a follow up on that. Subscribe to get the update :-)
Roger Hamilton October 29, 2008 at 14:35 ·

This is an interesting article. I agree with what you said. There are indeed quite a lot of social media benefits. Thanks for sharing! Hope to see your new posts soon.
lucio November 2, 2008 at 16:21 ·

Tad, is the 20 minutes taken in consideration creating the conception and writing or just writing?

Another point is to Learn
Couple of days ago I learned on twitter about a campaign from a big car brand in US. It happens that I was in need of similar idea for a client of mine – the interaction and the momentum was just possible due twitter.
My2 cents
Cheers
Lucio Ribeiro
Alma Gray November 21, 2008 at 19:13 ·

Discounting social media is like saying that planes suck because you can’t drive them.
Great analogy!

lol..love it!
chicha December 2, 2008 at 18:22 ·

i think word by mouth, though is not efficient, but it’s more effective until now…^^
They Know Something You don’t December 10, 2008 at 09:49 ·

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