Being Social is Not Just Common Courtesy, It's Vital to Business Survival!

As the popularity of social networking grows, so does the importance it plays as part of your overall online marketing strategy. DRIVE's social networking specialists can help you:

Understand the different markets that are available on the various social networking sites.
Understand the varieties of tactics that can be employed to best communicate with your target audience on those social sites.
Create content to publish on the social sites.
Set up and develop your blogging strategy. We can even write expert content for you as ghost bloggers.
Establish an email marketing campaign as part of your social networking.

This last item is vitally important because social networking is beginning to replace email newsletters due to email in-boxes getting inundated with messages and newsletters we don't really care about.

While existing newsletter strategies already in place for existing customers is still important to a degree, the ability to develop new social networking strategies is equally important.
Don't forget, the percentage of the population that regularly visits Facebook is the same as the percentage of your customers that are on Facebook, as well.
If your customers are on Facebook, you need to reach them there.

The Statistics Speak for Themselves; Social Networking is a Growth Market - Just Ask Facebook

Click on an icon to visit these social networking websites (sites open in new window)

The appearance of icons for popular sites like YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter (click on icons to open social networking sites in a new window) on traditional offline advertising venues highlight the importance businesses place on social networking to reach their target market.

To illustrate this, according to a Nielsen Company report, in December 2009 the average U.S. Internet user spent an estimated 68 hours online (both at home and at work).

In that time, on average:

Nearly 2700 websites were viewed, with an average visit of 57 seconds per site.
One hour and 53 minutes is spent on Google
Two hours and 40 minutes on AOL (which could be considered the first social networking venue)
Three hours and 8 minutes on Yahoo (including their popular email service)
And a whopping five hours and 25 minutes on Facebook, an 82% increase over the same time a year earlier. And their popularity just keeps growing.
- As of February 2010, the average time spent on Facebook was up to more than seven hours per month.
- The average user spent more time on Facebook than on Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Microsoft, Wikipedia and Amazon combined.

Contending with the Future of Social Networking

Many internet users spend more time logged into social network sites than watching TV, and are much more receptive to that environment because the user chooses where to receive information, as opposed to having information forced upon them.

It is also important to remember that while they might be on Facebook this year, they could be into something else "new" by next year.

You need to stay abreast of the ever-changing landscape of the segmented target markets that are using, or not using any longer, particular social networking sites.
You should include your social networking site information on your offline marketing materials, including TV, radio, and especially print advertising. The mere presence of those Facebook and Twitter logos on your website says something about you to your audience.
Create content to publish on the social sites.
Set up and develop your blogging strategy. We can even write expert content for you as ghost bloggers.
Establish an email marketing campaign as part of your social networking.

If that is something that you think is important to your target market, then it is very important that you have those programs in place or you won't meet your audience's expectations and will get beaten by your competitors who do meet their target market in the places they expect to see you.

Comments for Being Social is Not Just Common Courtesy, It's Vital to Business Survival!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010 by GB:: Sociality in those networking sites is great for the enterpreneur, but isn't it a double-edged sword for the average consumer? People join these sites only to be scrutinized as job applicants by the very businesses using them to jump on opportunity. I realize that the purpose here is to provide strategies for business expansion. Businesses need to realize that a percentage of those on Facebook are also those seeking jobs in this tough economy. Is it possible that businesses can embrace the use of social networking sites by job seekers? Many thanks in advance.
Thursday, August 19, 2010 by Ken Zweigel:: GB, Thanks for your insightful comments. I suspect many companies embrace social networking regarding job seekers, but I also suspect the range of their uses includes openly engaging applicants to checking on the types of "friends" an applicant has, which may not be so ethical but it is legal. It could be that in this economy many frustrated job seekers will soon become reluctant entrepreneurs, like I was forced to do in an economic downturn, and then take advantage of that aspect of the online social scene. In the end, the potential unlimited rewards of entrepreneurship outweigh the limited benefits of a continuing series of jobs and periods of unemployment, because eventually you become too old and too experienced and with a too-high salary demand to be hired by cost-conscious youth-oriented companies or institutions. By the age of 40, most professionals should be able to find a specialty or unique set of skills they possess that have value in the open marketplace. Instead of being "unemployed" and looking for a job, you can be a "businesswoman" looking for customers or a "consultant" looking for clients. Instead of going through a long period of unemployment, you may be able to use the time to slowly build up a small client base that can be used to hone your offering and acquire references as a business owner, to then grow the business as much as you desire. --Ken
Tuesday, October 19, 2010 by wywl:: The current number of users in the Internet when they are encountered by this win situation, in fact, these are scams. Liu Jun, Director mentioned, as well as the use of QQ CCTV "6 1" spreading false information is up to winning, in the Network Security Branch at the statistics, Tencent, and CCTV has beenlinks of london jewellery in a number of websites "have never been winning activities on the organized network "statement, so winning the pop-up information on the network are basically scams.