We have found that many companies overlook having a social media presence due to some skepticism, lack of time to think about and implement a strategy, lack of marketing budget, afraid that people will complain or leave negative comments about their company or products, no guaranteed results, or they simply think that they’ve never needed it before so why now?
Why you need to have a social media presence
Social media is here to stay so if you don’t get on the social media train now you may miss the next great stop-off at the right time, and miss the chance to get your brand talked about and noticed more.
Although many of the social media networks are free, actually it’s not essentially free because time is money. It takes time to get to know your followers and to tweak your marketing strategy to keep them interested and get them to spread the news and info about your company. Remember that people do not want to only be shown information about your company and to hear how great your company, services and products are. Social media is about sharing useful information relevant to your followers, showing how your brand can assist and be of good use to them and showing that you are knowledgeable in your relevant industry by sharing other reputable industry information, and at the same time remembering to be flexible with what the market requires.
A few interesting stats about how fast social media took off: radio took 38 years to reach 50 million listeners; it took television 13 years to gain 50 million viewers. Facebook gained 100 million users within 9 months. Social media is a pivotal medium that people are using to communicate and receive communication from, people they know, sources they respect and admire, news and other information, and this is only going to grow even more.
Social media can be measured through various tools like the reporting tools offered by some of the networks, Google Analytics and others.
Should you do social media yourself, in-house or hire an agency?
Yourself: It is tempting to do social media yourself but to be honest, do you really have the time? Social media requires regular content to be uploaded and you must be able to speedily reply to requests, comments or even complaints as they come through. It is not good enough to simply setup a few social media network accounts, with sporadic posts or images and then think it’s going to work and be awesome.
Hiring someone in-house: this can be very costly as you’ll need to pay them a full salary, including taxes, refreshments, equipment, training, paid leave etc.
Hiring the services of an agency: when you hire an agency they dedicate specific and focused paid-for-time to your brand. They are experienced in running social media marketing accounts and stay up-to-date with the latest social media tools and techniques, which they can strategically apply to your social media marketing campaign. Agencies will have various skilled people within their team which they can draw on as is required e.g. film, designers, copywriters, bloggers, web developers, social enthusiasts, even entrepreneurs etc.
There are no worries about your social campaigns ever being unattended when your staff member goes on leave, an agency will always have someone available to continue and run with the social media campaign strategy.
Agencies will treat your brand as if it is their own and are passionate about making it a success for you. Agencies can make your social presence awesome!
So are you ready to jump on the social media train now?
Why wouldn’t you want to hear what people are saying about your company, whether it is good or bad? If it’s bad then at least it can be monitored and controlled, and turned around for good. You don’t want someone else to register your brand names and they may be talking about something that is irrelevant to your brand, but users looking for you will see that and could think it is you or think that you don’t think your brand is important enough to be online, rather your brand should be strong and confident in being online.
Let’s make the most of this powerful medium for your company and make your brand a social media “station” that everyone wants to stop-off at.
Please contact us at MJ Media if you are interested in getting your company socially buzzing online. We have various options available to suit your needs. We look forward to hearing from you.
