Social Media: ‘Who does this?’

It is probably fair to say that questions remain in certain quarters of business and commerce about social media. Indeed, the common enquiries we field tend to focus on both the prevalence of social media and its ‘staying power’. Obviously we would tell you that those people who use one or more social media channel do so regularly. However, before you question my impartiality, I thought I would highlight some new research by the UK Online Measurement company (published on the BBC website) which shows that British web users are spending the majority of their time online – 22.7% in all – on social networks or blogs. In addition, e-mail (arguably the first form of social networking, but that’s another post…) has seen a rise of 1.2%, accounting for 7.2% of time spent overall.

Equally important is the fact that British web users now spend 65% more time online than they did three years ago, which equates to 22 hours and 15 minutes each month.

These statistics beg the question, ‘how are you communicating with your audience?’ Do you currently ask them to search for you, and then present them with content on one platform which has been published and largely left unchanged? That might be the right strategy for you, but could you be doing more?

Could you use multiple channels to interact directly with your audience, asking questions about your products and using feedback to shape future releases? Could you promote new services or ‘flash deals’? Could you answer customer service questions quickly and efficiently? Could you acquire new customers by talking to them in their environment?

When it comes to social media, maybe the most pertinent question is: ‘why don’t we do this?’