The Derived Value of Social Media

We asked a broad question and received some interesting yet correlated responses.

Q: Where is the value derived from social media in your business?

Response 1:

“Social media is one of those things that (most of the time) requires very little in the way of monetary investment but a LOT in the way of time in order to make it work. Everything is very fast-paced and people have relatively short attention spans when it comes to the internet. You have to be very diligent in the upkeep of your websites and any community that you manage to build, or people will go elsewhere.

The company I am working for, “…” operates on a variety of Social Media platforms and focus on a movie culture theme (as this ties in with the brand). Our linkedin group is, however, a bit more corporate focus in keeping with the general atmosphere of the site “…” We get a lot of our business via social media word-of-mouth, and many promotions are managed this way as well. Because movie culture ties in with celebrity culture, we also gain publicity by having the brand associated with celebrities and sports figures via social media (For example, pictures of popular sports players wearing our shirts on Facebook.)

However, our target demographic is one that would be heavily vested in social media regardless, so the use of social media is a natural fit for our business. Unfortunately, Social media has become the big new buzzword in town and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, including companies for whom social media really isn’t a good fit. Because of the time investment involved, it is wise to take a good long look at your target demographic before deciding if social media is worth it for your business.”

Response 2:

“The real value is the word of mouth. Social media is an immediate user feedback, discussion, recommendations, insights. What can be better if you want to improve your customer service for example or enhance some features of your product or just generate creative insights driven by the users of your product?
The only thing (which is often neglected) is that social media is not a panacea from doing your business efficiently everyday. If you are not innovative, fast and your product is simply inferior – social media will never help. Social media is not “plug-and-play” mechanism, it requires detailed evaluation and monitoring, strategic fit, substantial effort and patience.”

Response 3:

“I have started to use social media, mainly Twitter, quite a lot in the last 6 months. I find its the very best way to promote your business, products and service on an absolute shoe string budget.

At the start of this year the company I work for choice to launch a brand new Business Gifts website but they offered me no budget to promote it. The only way I have managed to keep regular website visits is through Twitter, our main website and getting our sales guys to promote it.

So, it has been invaluable in raising the profile of this new site.”

Response 4:

“Our companies Web site traffic has tripled to quadrupled since we launched our blog and Twitter account. Numbers don’t lie.”

Response 5:

“I believe social media has the ability to be your best friend or worst enemy. If a company is making tweets or writing blogs that genuinely add value or knowledge to their business/potential customers, it can increase the credibility of your company, which helps in gaining customers. We have a B2B audience, so we utilize LinkedIn, Twitter and a corporate blog to communicate. The efforts have just started within the last month but the feedback in this short of time has been positive.

Social media, as much as it can help, I think it can be detrimental to a company as well. If a business is using the conversation to make a low budget sales pitch rather than actively communicate with people and add value, it can ruin the credibility of that company just as quickly (just my personal opinion).”

Our Take

Social media provides a method for creating value through word of mouth in a non-traditional way. Gone are the days when an individual would watch an entire commercial on television. Businesses need to be attentive to the trends of our connected society and identify how they can appropriately promote their value-proposition within these networks. But it seems that there are some caveats to “jumping on the band-wagon” as one of our respondents put it. Social media may or may not be a good fit for your company.

We are of the opinion that if you can engage individuals with social media that is entertaining, interesting, valuable, or timely you can succeed in this sphere. But there is always the danger of coming off too “salesy”. Caution should be taken to provide content that focuses more on the idea that “sharing is caring” rather than a blatant pitch. Even for businesses that are not necessarily an obvious fit – creative and entertaining forms of social media could be a plausible entry point.

We are interested in hearing your opinion on how your business derives value from social media.