Social Media and Business Opportunities

Image by World Bank Photo Collection via Flickr

Recently I was a guest speaker at the Business Opportunities Conference in Scotland, here is an extract from the conference summary:

“The growing phenomenon of social networking was tackled by Ana Bakalinova, head of web publishing at Trinity Mirror group. “Social networks and digital media is a big subject,” she said. “Ten years ago it was the dotcom boom – now it is called the social media boom. Nobody knows where it is going. It is probably not going to be the next big thing but is THE big thing.”

Bakalinova said research had shown that the majority of people used their mobile phone rather than their desktops. She said that 44 per cent of over-sixteens have a social networking presence such as a Facebook page or Twitter or Linkedin account. Some 93 per cent of users expected businesses to be on a social network. “They expect you to have a fun page on Facebook or to be on Linkedin.” she said.

Bakalinova also explained that the first and biggest benefits for SMEs from using social media was generating exposure for their brand – use as a marketing tool. The second was increasing traffic to their product and improved search rankings so they are found on Google more easily.

20,000 companies were recently asked in a survey which networks they were using and Twitter was number one as a popular social media channel to talk to their audience, Facebook was second and Linkedin third.

When considering which social network sites to target Bakalinova said businesses should “fish where the fish are” and see where their audience was.”