Which social media sites are a must..

[SIC2014]

Social media is certainly not a must - more a tool like any other marketing strategy. Decide what you want to achieve then determine whether or not social media might help you achieve your goals.

 

[AnnaDMC]

Also Ello. There are new and exciting social media channels opening up all of the time. Do a Google search and find potential social sites within your niche. They may have a smaller following, but they will be more relevant and qualified for you and your organisation.

 

[fisicx]

...and exciting social media channels opening up all of the time.

Why are they exciting?

As an aside, I wanted to fnd out what time a film was showing at the local fleapit. I managed to get the info without any SM help. I also wanted to buy a book. I didn't need twitter to find it on amazon. We also needed some logs for the woodburner. Google was able to help. I could have asked my facebook friends but as they all live miles away their input wouldn't have been much use.

Socila Media is not a must. It can be useful but it's not essential at all.

 

[VirtualVIP]

We just done a bit of research on social media and links to customer service. Really does depend on the type of business you are in, but it contains some useful stats nonetheless. You can see it here. Cheers

 

[fisicx]

Good infographic.

As a way to respond to customer question, queries and complaints SM works well.

But SM isn't so good if you want to promote your business (which is what all the experts keep saying). Facebook is now advising business to use adverts if they want to 'reach' people as the newsfeeds are now so clogged with shared content people miss most of the postings. Tweets have an even shorter lifespan, one survey reported tweeks dissapearing within 10 minutes.

 

[Gaia Rinaldelli]

I use Facebook just for ad campaigns honestly, but I found Twitter good both for building relationships and ads as well.
Linkedin can be useful if you're looking for a new job, it's quite visited by recruiters, but I agree it really depends on your industry.
In terms of sales I prefer much more running an ad campaign on different SM than keep writing new posts all the time, but if you're good at it you can find genuine followers that didn't know about your business before you posted it (or tweeted it).
I noticed no one mentioned about.me : it's good if you are trying to build an image of yourself (or of your business), especially if you're involved in different areas and want to have a unique profile that gathers all the others.
It's basically a one page profile of you, with links to your social media if you have it, and usually a huge image that it's representative. You can also build relationships with a lot of interesting people !

 

[kbar]

I think all of them are important to businesses. The key is how you use them to your biz advantage. Some platforms are more suitable for certain businesses than others. Some businesses are doing well on Twitter and Facebook, others are more for Instagram and Pinterest. It depends on your business type and what industry you're in. Also note this, if something doesn't work for someone doesn't mean that it won't work for your biz. You might have smarter strategies or different services or products which you can market better online via social media than your competitors. You just have to try different platforms, different times, different headlines, different content etc to see what works best for your biz. Generally I do think that social media marketing is vital for any business. You can potentially reach anyone, even outside your local area. Especially online businesses are seeing the potential of maximising exposure and sales online through social media activities. Good luck!

 

[fisicx]

Generally I do think that social media marketing is vital for any business.

Amazon and ebay seem to manage OK without social media marketing.

I did my shopping in Sainsbury yesterday without having to use facebook.
I didn't need twitter to fill my car up with petrol.
I brought some nails without instagram
I got fish and chips without the help of yelp.

There are millions of businesses who do just fine without social media. The bloke who does our plumbing is maxxed out with business - doesn't need to do any marketing, SM won't make be the slightest use to him.

Note: not saying SMM isn't useful and has it's place but it's not essential.

 

[kbar]

Amazon and ebay seem to manage OK without social media marketing.

I did my shopping in Sainsbury yesterday without having to use facebook.
I didn't need twitter to fill my car up with petrol.
I brought some nails without instagram
I got fish and chips without the help of yelp.

There are millions of businesses who do just fine without social media. The bloke who does our plumbing is maxxed out with business - doesn't need to do any marketing, SM won't make be the slightest use to him.

Note: not saying SMM isn't useful and has it's place but it's not essential.

Agreed! If you're a small biz owner who is happy with the business you're getting then SM might not be effective. And yes, there are millions of businesses not taking advantage of SM. But there are also businesses that do. And if they are in your market over time they will build up new audience, credibility (if they blog about their niche) and potentially new customers. You might have loyal customers now but if you don't keep up with what's going on in your market than you might eventually loose out. Take your plumber example. There are young plumbers coming into your market. They might not have the customer base like you do, they might not have experience like you but they are using SM to their advantage. They blog about their jobs, they show their expertise, they have a website that is SEO friendly, they are building their newsletter list and they interact with customers online and SM. SM might not be for everyone now but what every biz owner should be aware of is where things are going.

 

[fisicx]

But I will never even know that young plumber exists. If I need work doing I call Dave and sort out a date. I'm not going to go looking for a new plumber not matter how good his website or SM activities.

We brought some logs the for the woodburner yesterday, I did a quick google search, called Ray on the phone and he delivered today. How would a facebook page have helped me?

All the reports (including FB own documents) point to a reduced effectiveness of SMM. For no other reason that everyone is doing it, the newsfeeds have become saturated to point where is not even possible to follow everything. It's got to the point when I can't even find my daughter's posts in all the clutter.