Businesses should be listening to online discussions now
to enable them
to take advantage of social media, a social media consultant
advises.
Whether it is for work or leisure, internet users are using
social networks
and businesses of all kinds. Businesses need to carefully consider
what how they can use them, according to
Christophe Langlois.
Christophe
Langlois is the founder of Visible-Banking which provides
consultancy services to financial services companies about using
social media. He says although it is important that businesses get
their social media use right, they should get aboard sooner rather
than later. "Any presence is better than none."
With Forrester Research expecting the number of people using the
web to increase 45% to 2.2 billion by 2013 it is no secret that
businesses need to engage online with potential customers.
Facebook recently overtook MySpace as the most-used social
networking site, with 108.3 million users globally in December
2008. This represented a 168% increase in a year. LinkedIn saw a
137% increase and had 15 million users in December 2008, according
to the online research company Nielsen.
Simon Kelly, director for corporate solutions Europe at
LinkedIn, said the social media site gets
one million new members every 17 days. MySpace had 81 million
members.
Microblogging site Twitter
had a 3,000% increase in UK traffic, according to Hitwise
Langlois says UK finance firms have
other priorities at the moment following the economic turmoil,
but the principles of
social media in the finance sector can be applied to any
industry.
He says it needn't cost a fortune to get started. But he warns
businesses to tread carefully and complete social media projects in
stages. "You do not need to invest a lot in technology and it is
manageable because it does not need a lot of dedicated
workers."
Christophe Langlois breaks the
implementation of social media into business strategy into four
parts:
- Listen and
learn
- Participate
- Engage
- Improve
Listen and Learn
"You cannot afford not to listen," says Langlois. "The first
thing is to understand what people are saying about you online.
This can be done by monitoring online discussions. Use the
information to help you make decisions."
A good example of this is when
HSBC reversed a decision it made about scrapping interest free
overdrafts for graduates after a backlash on Facebook.
Participate
Businesses should set up
their own social media networks and start joining in with other
social networks.
Engage
Businesses should exchange content with the community and
entertain them. They should also reward them with information only
available in the social network and run competitions.
Improve
He says the goal for businesses using social media is to reward
people in the community.
Using social media: