Blogs, forums, Facebook, YouTube. The list of social networking sites keeps growing, but the business benefits remain the same. Among them:
- Establish Credibility
Although you may not be aware of it, your customers almost certainly talk about your company online. Jump into the conversation, and you establish yourself both as an authority and as a real company that cares about your products and customers.
- Customer Feedback
Listening to online conversations is as important as participating in them. There’s no better way to get regular feedback about what customers think about your company and products than with social media.
- Customer Service
Many companies find that the time they spend social networking comes back to them in other ways – namely that their own customers end up fielding customer service questions for them in social media.
- Increase Sales
This may not be the biggest benefit of social networking (yet), but there’s no question that savvy marketers can increase sales by using social networking wisely.
- Competitive Advantage
Despite the advantages of social networking, not that many companies are taking full advantage of it. Jumping in while the field is still not crowded can give you a competitive advantage.
