How Could Social Media Have a Positive Affect on Your Business?

We are all hearing about the potential of social media for business. I am interested to learn what others find beneficial about the promise of social media.

Social media ranges from bloggers, micro bloggers (things like twitter), social networking and professional networking. Amidst the $20 billion spent on online marketing, social media has emerged as a new (and more importantly less expensive) alternative to driving leads for your business. Word of mouth has always (at least historically) been a great way to drive new business. In my last position driving marketing for an Internet Security Company generating $120 million in revenue, around 7% of our business was client referral business (happy customers referring us to other customers). We regularly tried to increase that amount thru online referral programs but rarely successful. Leveraging ones base has always been a regular sales/marketing initiative.

Social media provides us the opportunity to expand beyond our own base leveraging not only our network but the networks of others. Creating “buzz” in the social media environments is now on the forefront of any effective PR campaign (I have even spoken to companies just focused on social media buzz). Getting the bloggers to write about your product/service has even taken the path of pay-for-blogging sites like payforpost.com. The good news is that tracking the traffic is easier than ever and I would highly recommend you closely monitor your traffic to maximize your ROI.

In the end, it is the return on your marketing investment that should drive your decision making. While it’s always nice seeing your company’s name on a Blog, if that Blog isn't driving transactions on your web site or revenue for your company, then what is it really accomplishing? Marketing initiatives need to be persistent to drive consistent results. Keep in mind that once you start delivering results to the business the expectation for more always increases, thus the need for new initiatives to continue.