The quintessential question for marketing departments and small business owners globally. With the rapid integration of social media into daily life for anybody who is even remotely using technology for business, the conundrum becomes, how much focus/importance do I put on social media?
The thing to look at now for marketers is how to reach the people that you want to buy your services/products. People are getting smarter and more savvy in seeing through traditional forms of advertising. Consumers have millions of options of at the click of a mouse, touch of a fingertip or through a personal recommendation that businesses are being forced to change their marketing strategies from talking to their clients to interacting with their clients. In order to evolve and keep pace with the way people receive messages, the companies that embrace social media are the ones that will thrive in todays business world.
Two-thirds of the world’s Internet population visit social networking or blogging sites, accounting for almost 10% of all internet time, according to a new Nielsen report “Global Faces and Networked Places.” If data captured from December 2007 through December 2008 is any indication, that percentage is likely to grow as time spent on social network and blogging sites is growing more than three times the rate of overall Internet growth.
“Social networking has become a fundamental part of the global online experience,” commented John Burbank, CEO of Nielsen Online. “While two-thirds of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing.”
