Social networking and community engagement technology made easy

What we found out during our Nielsen-Community Engine 2010 Social Media Business Benchmarking Study is that this year, 71 percent of Australian organisations will participate in some form of social media marketing, a number up from 60 percent in 2009. The general attitude is most definitely shifting from considering IF they should utilise social platforms, to HOW they should.

I’m not going to be one of those people to judge whether a company is using social media the “right or wrong” way, but I will say, there are more effective approaches to social media marketing from a business perspective than others. Why is this important?

No one wants to participate in a social media space where a company is using it to talk only about their company. How is that being social? There is an entire relationship building process that occurs on these sites and without that, you’re just a billboard that will eventually be ignored.  When companies are shooting for numbers and not relating to the consumer, social media is a wasted space.  So how can businesses both build relationships and market at the same time?

Social platforms are a great place to meet people, aka prospective customers. There is a time and place for every great transaction, and social platforms are great for this, but not without conversation and time.  Goals can be different for different organisations. Sure, you can go for numbers, but at the end of the day, relationships are what stand strong, even when you step on toes. Mark Evans, contributing writer on Social Media Today recently write a post on social media success. He says:

“The reality, however, is social media isn’t like other business efforts that can be easily measured because there are hard and soft metrics that can be used to determine success.

The situation is even more complicated by another truism: success can be anything you want it to be.

If the goal is getting the CEO mentioned more often within business blogs, and this happens, then social media can be described as a success.

The same goes for other goals such as a stronger brand, better customer service, higher sales, improved relations with customers, employees and partners, or a bigger digital presence than competitors.”

I understand this, and I guess it boils down to whether you’re building for short-term success or you’re shooting for long-term success. I’m a fan of the latter.

So, if social media can be anything we want it to be and anywhere we want it to be, where exactly are we?  According to our research going from most populated presence to least:

1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. You Tube
4. Myspace
5. Linkedin

Although these social media platforms are popular, 30 percent of organisations have said they would prefer to create their own social platform. But whether or participating in an already established social media platform or on your own, it’s important to remember that Australians are the global leaders of time spent in social media. This is not some fad.  Social media is where your clients and customers are.  Quite the shift from where we used to be.

Even information consumption is changing. It’s certainly not just marketing. We recently write a post about social media and its role in the news and pointed out the way in which we consume information is changing primarily to online sources. Mashable just reported that according to new research by the Pew Internet Project is claiming that we all may be consuming video via the Internet by 2015.

So, we’re turning into a predominately online society. I’m just curious. Where are you? What is your favorite platform to use? Do you prefer one platform over the other? If so, why?

posted by Piers Hogarth-Scott in the category Reserach & Statistics Social Media Social networking
Tags: mark evans, nielsen-community engine social media business benchmarking study, Pew Internet, social media today