Social media: A business opportunity you can’t ignore

38522274_s Social media is now the No. 1 way the majority of Americans spend their time on the Internet. Currently, there are more than 1 billion active Facebook users and 400 million Twitter users – and these numbers are increasing rapidly. It’s clear that social media is booming. People use it for everything: to obtain news, to be entertained and to research and buy products and services. In fact, social media offers a straight, quick path to your target audience – which is why you can’t afford not to be using it.

Endless opportunities

There are virtually unlimited ways that companies can use social media to promote and improve their businesses. Here’s a small sample:

Maximizing public relations efforts
Increasing brand awareness
Managing the company’s reputation
Generating leads
Strengthening consumer engagement
Monitoring customer feedback
Highlighting community involvement
Promoting and launching products
Distributing news and content
Reaching out to and connecting with the media

The numbers speak for themselves

Some of the most current statistics about the top social media sites are quite persuasive:

Ninety percent of all active Internet users in the U.S. are connected to some type of social media site or blog.
Seventy percent of businesses polled are utilizing a social media strategy or are planning to in the coming year.
Sixty-three percent are not actively managing their online reputations.
Most social media strategies in larger companies now include Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Facebook

More than 1 billion people actively use Facebook.
More than 60 percent of Facebook users are active daily.
Facebook users have an average of 130 friends.
The average user is connected to 80 pages.
Facebook users create an average of 90 pieces of content per month.
After becoming a fan of a brand on Facebook, 65 percent of users said they would recommend that brand to a friend.
Ninety-five percent of Facebook Timeline posts and comments go unanswered by businesses.

Twitter

Twitter boasts more than 400 million users.
That number increases by 300,000 every day.
Users post roughly 200 million tweets daily.
Fifty-four percent of businesses have generated leads using Twitter and 30 percent have closed deals using Twitter.
Twitter receives more than 3 billion requests per day and more than 250 million unique visitors.
There are 800 million searches each day on Twitter’s search engine.

Social media is a smart marketing solution; getting PR help is smarter

Keeping a strong social media presence is an affordable and effective strategy that any business can employ to make a serious difference in the bottom line. However, maintaining the level of activity and engagement your company requires across all of its social media profiles and platforms can be a daunting task – and it definitely isn’t one you’d want to pawn off on your summer intern.

The professionals at Axia PR can help you develop a social media policy that works to enhance your profitability and protect your brand. Contact us today or download our Essential Social Media Management Guide e-book for information on managing your social media presence.