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Health & Fitness

What Role Does Social Media Have in Business?

Megan discusses the "social media revolution", and how it is becoming a key marketing method for businesses of all sizes.

Since I started at the chamber, my main focus has been
improving our social media efforts. Between Twitter, Facebook, Google+,
blogging, and LinkedIn, I have had my hands full! I remember when I first
started talking about what I do here, my friends and family laughed at me! I
had so many people say things like, “So you just sit there playing on Facebook
all day?” At first I got a little defensive, and I wanted to prove to them that
I was making a difference here, but their questions really got me thinking, how
big of a role does social media play in businesses?

According to businessinsider.com, social media has overtaken
pornography as the number one activity online, a new member joins LinkedIn
every second, and 93% of marketing professionals use social media for business.
It’s pretty clear that the social media revolution is here to stay, and to
answer the question, it plays a MONUMENTAL role in how we do business today.

Let’s approach this from a personal standpoint. If I want to
throw my mom a birthday party, I’m not going to send out invitations via snail-mail,but rather create an event page on Facebook. This is not only faster, but it is
less expensive, virtually error-proof, and so much less of a hassle. On the
other hand, let’s say I ate a really bad burger at a fast food restaurant; you
better believe I’m going to tweet about how mad I am! The same thing applies
for businesses. Social media networking allows businesses to connect with their
employees, customers, potential customers, and even other businesses on a much
larger scale than ever before. Sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+
all allow businesses to promote themselves free of charge, to more people than
could be reached through any other marketing medium.

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As much as my mom hates it, with my phone I have the ability
to access all of my personal social media sites instantly with just the push of
a button. Being a high school student, I also know that I can read my horoscope
on twitter, comment on my friend’s picture, come up with a killer word on words
with friends, and take notes in math all at the same time. This only shows that
social media is with everyone all the time. If businesses can be a part of all that bombarding, why would they not take advantage of that opportunity?

How do you feel about businesses incorporating themselves into the social media world? We would love to hear any stories about how a social media site has influenced the way your company does business. Keeping up with today’s theme- don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

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-Megan Towle

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