IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE WORK PLACE

Social media is about community and relationships. You probably already realize how important it is to increase your businesses exposure in your local community. Perhaps you belong to the local Chamber of Commerce, Rotary club or serve on the board of a charitable organization. Think of social media as an online extension of the many networking activities you may already participate in as part of the “real world.” Some of the more commonly known professional sites are LinkedIn, FastPitch and Plaxo. These sites are used for business networking and job hunting. Many people consider them to be customer lead generation vehicles as well. These sites share the common objective of building an online business community. They can support your business by strengthening and expanding its network of contacts. Based on specific trade and business information, LinkedIn, Fastpitch and Plaxo can enable you to connect with individuals who may have mutually beneficial opportunities to offer.

Five social media workplace opportunities:

1. Promote your company’s brand—sales and marketing professionals can use social media to introduce and promote new products and services in a way that increases a potential target market exponentially. Social networking sites allow consumers to communicate with each other and to share their thoughts and ideas about your company’s products. Additionally, social media sites provide consumers with the opportunity to “follow” your products or services or to “tweet” about their experiences, thereby creating a more personal connection while building brand loyalty.
2. Engage your customers—whatever your company sells, whether a product or a service, it has a customer base that can be engaged through social media. But the manner of engagement is unique because social media has revolutionized the style of business-to-customer communications. Customers no longer want to be talked at. Instead, they are looking for organizations to listen, to appropriately engage, and to respond to them. Social media sites are now used as a version of electronic word of mouth and provide a platform for your consumers to not only speak directly to your company, but also for consumers to communicate with each other, sharing reviews or testimonials about specific products or services. Companies that join social media sites are able to create stronger relationships with their customers and are also able to improve customer service by utilizing social media to address customer service issues.
3. Improved recruiting techniques—the days of simply posting a job on a job board or running a newspaper advertisement is long over. Instead, recruiters today are increasingly turning to social media sites to attract and recruit top talent. In order to avoid being barraged with hundreds of resumes submitted by unqualified candidates, recruiters are choosing to perform targeted searches on professional social media sites, such as LinkedIn. Doing so allows recruiters to search for candidates with specific knowledge, skills and experience. Prospective employees are also using company profiles posted on social media sites to develop lists of companies where they would be interested in working. By creating a detailed profile, your company will be able to attract the best candidates and maintain strong ties with former valued employees who could be potential candidates in the future.
4. Employee engagement—Social Networking tools allow organizations to improve communication and productivity among employees. Professional social media sites such as LinkedIn, allow your employees to join specific work groups in order to engage in conversations with other professionals in similar industries. This kind of participation can broaden the employee’s knowledge base and help to generate new and innovative ways of meeting business challenges. Employees can also use social networking sites to build targeted professional networks that can help them stay current with market trends. Allowing employees the latitude to utilize social media techniques also promotes trust with employees and fosters a more collaborative environment.
5. Cost effective—using social media as a sales and marketing tool is a very inexpensive mode of advertising because it reaches a vast audience for a marginal investment. Instead of spending large amounts of money on marketing and advertising campaigns, let your happy customers advertise for you. Many consumers rely heavily on social media sites such as Yelp, Urbanspoon, and Citysearch for peer reviews of businesses. Many consumers are no longer going directly to the source for product information; they trust their peers to fairly review products for them. Therefore it’s a good idea to encourage your customers or clients to check-in at your business, or direct them to review your product online. This method ensures that you reach a vast audience via social networks, and even better, doesn’t cost you a thing.                       By Segesela Blandina BAPRM 42663