I have been implementing many forms of Social Media for the past six months and find the task of filling out your profile and uploading a suitable photo very time consuming.
I know I am not the only person that feels social media is too time consuming, there are many online comments regarding the excessive time it takes to navigate around, signing in reading emails, writing back and then more reading.
Here is a quick tip…Download Yoono which is software that can help you synchronise all you comments to many social media sites at the same time.
My question has always been… are we getting any real social value in being a member of numerous social media websites. Spending this much time with friends and acquaintances face to face would seem like a better idea. On the other hand, social media is a great way to keep in contact with friends and business contacts in far away places.
Business can also keep in touch
It is just not possible to have any meaningful contact with thousands of people on Facebook, Twitter or Linked In ,(depending on your social media). The main purpose for many business oriented pages is to gain attention of the followers, receive a comment, get clicks, links and direct traffic back to their website.
Of course many pages on Facebook and Twitter are social only, social users will now be spending this space with the business world. Why is this the case? Social media sites need to fund the ongoing operation of the websites so revenue needs to be raised through advertising.
Patents of Google and Yahoo have included higher ranking points for comments made on bloggs so it makes sense to have a blog on your website. Promote your blog and entice your loyal followers to make comments on your site, which consequently increases your data usage.
In regards to small to medium business… social media research shows businesses are spending approximately 6 hours per week implementing social media strategy. Small business and sole traders have the highest weekly usage with more than half of marketers indicating a rise in the use of social media.
My take on social media is it will grow as more businesses see a low cost way to reach their target market. Of course this mainly applies to sole traders and small to medium business. Many corporate business would not see the time invested in social media as an adequate ROI(excluding advertising on Facebook or Linked In) as they require high volume response levels which social media does not adequately deliver.