With the explosion of social media over the past couple of years there are a lot of businesses that feel they need to take advantage of this ever growing trend. Social media is relevant to businesses because it shows how their consumers and prospects are interacting with each other, but what value can be drawn from this is somewhat undecided for the majority of us.

One thing that is clear is that as the 'craze' turns into a common trend it will become more important for businesses to not only have a presence but create a crafted social media strategy.

This blog looks into how this titanic shift in consumer behavior can have the ability to grow your business. We are going to look into:

1.    The main players
2.    How businesses are currently using Social Media
3.    Some Social Media pitfalls to watch out for 

4.    Where to start

1. The main social media players

The great thing about social media is that it's a two-way conversation as opposed to traditional media that prevents the user engaging with the brand. Social Media is all about 'interaction' and allowing your business to engage with its audience. As we look around at affordable ways to drive traffic to our websites, social networking is providing companies with a river of recommended users. To get started we have gone through the main providers in each segment.Facebook users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.

Facebook (Social Network)
Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.
Usage stats: The largest of the 'social networking' sites with over 700,000,000 members.
Business uses: Brands and businesses can have pages that allow Facebook members to become 'fans' and become more attached with their brand.
Website use: Having a Facebook bookmark on your site allows users to automatically post a page allowing their friends to visit recommended sites

Twitter (Micro Blogging)
Twitter is a social networking and micro blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets.
Usage stats: Twitter has just sent its 10 billionth tweet. It broke 1 billion in 2008 and 5 billion only 4 months ago.
Business uses: Having followers allows you to update them with instant information. This could include new products, training courses or career opportunities all driving traffic to your site.
Website use: Integration with a twitter feed allows you to post updates from your Twitter account to your website while the Twitter bookmark allows users to post that page to their account.

YouTube (Video Network)YouTube makes it possible for anyone with an internet connection to upload a video to a worldwide audience within a few minutes.
Usage stats: More than six billion videos were viewed in January 2009.
Business uses: Uploading company videos onto YouTube gives you another marketing channel to promote your business. Live viewing of sport is only just around the corner with the IPL cricket comp being streamed live across the web.
Website use: Embed videos into your site and watch them directly – YouTube will even pick up your bandwidth bill!

Google 'Buzz' (Social Network/RSS/Microblog)
Buzz, according to their homepage, "Allows you to share updates, photos, videos, and more. Start conversations about the things you find interesting".
Usage Stats: Buzz is too new to have any relevant figures yet but its integration into Gmail's 146 million monthly users should give it the start it needs.
Business uses: Buzz is Google's 'Twitter Killer' so its functionality and paradigms are very similar to the mega successful micro blogging service, also allowing you to integrate it into your site.
Website use: Create a Buzz bookmark that allows users to instantly 'Buzz' a page to their account.

Foursquare (Location-based social networking website)
Foursquare is a location service-based social network-come-game. What it does in effect is to tell you where your friends are and add a little fun to going out in the evening.
Usage stats: Foursquare is the fastest growing Social Media site experiencing a jump of +48.97% to 592,445 users in January 2010.
Business uses: Too young to demonstrate results but shows massive commercial opportunity with the service allowing hotels, bars, clubs and pubs to communicate offers to local users of the system.
Website use: Integrate with your website to show users that have 'checked in' recently to your premises.

LinkedIn (Business Networking)
LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site that was founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003. It allows business people to network online.
Usage stats: LinkedIn is the largest business networking site and as of 11 February 2010 had more than 60 million registered users.
Business uses: Recruit staff, network with like minded professionals or follow industry trends and developments through the site.
Website use: Integrate with your website to allow users to post web pages directly to their profile.

2. How businesses are currently using Social Media

• With so many different options available to your business it is important that you assess how your prospects and customers are already using Social Media. For example, if you are a B2B company selling industrial steel, setting up a Facebook page is not going to have much impact on your brand. To get you thinking we have listed some common uses:
• Research your customers - learn what your customers are talking about and how they are interacting online.
• Online networking - a great way for companies to use sites like LinkedIn to connect with other professionals.
• Online promotions - offer incentives to users to promote your brand through status updates. I saw a great example of this last Christmas with the Westfield Christmas Campaign where they gave one lucky person a $10,000 gift voucher if they changed their status to, "All I want for Christmas is a Westfield gift card"
• Understand what your consumers are saying about you - services like Twitter allow you to search for what your customers are saying about your brand.
• Open up the conversation - use social networking services to generate feedback, promote new products and keep your customers in the loop.
• Company updates - the NRL and other sporting codes are using services like Twitter to give fans real time score and player updates.
• Generate traffic to your site - a core outcome from a succesful social media campaign is a boost in your website traffic.
• Improve internal communication - Dell employees are allowed to comment on company blogs in turn improving the company communication.
• Utilise social media to drive offline campaigns - upload TV campaigns through YouTube, announce product releases through Twitter, and/or receive feedback through Facebook
• Follow your competition on Twitter - we do and we know exactly what they are up to! Twitter is great tool for competitive analysis.
• Recruitment - having a successful social media strategy can really help with recruitment. One great idea is to get your staff to also update their profiles to something like, "Online Now is hiring - go to http://www.onlinenow.com.au/about/careers to apply".

3. Social media pitfalls & some tips to avoiding them

1. It's important to not worry too much about the pitfalls and just to get your brand visible, but see a few points below that identify some to watch out for.
2. Put one person in charge - it's important that your Social Media presence has consistency so make sure that you have one person that monitors it, not the whole office updating when they feel like it.
3. Keep it up to date - don't set up your account then leave it for 6 months. Part of your strategy needs to be to pull out if you do not get uptake or the lack the resources to keep on top of it.
4. Get some friends - this is probably the biggest fear for small businesses but there are measures you can take to drive the campaign. These include:
     •   Offer incentives to customers to join (Facebook & Twitter friends get 10% off)
     •   Encourage staff and 'friends' of the business to get involved
     •   Push it through your website making it simple for users to join
     •   Promote it on your email marketing and through your email signatures
5. Choose the right channels - as mentioned earlier ensure you understand how your customers are interacting online and look to engage with them.
6. Find good content - tell an interesting story, don't bore your audience with pointless updates - find a good narrative and stick with it.
7. Listen to your audience - Thanks Nestle for this one, listen to your audience and don't edit their feedback.
8. Stand behind your business - as great as social media is for communication it also allows users to criticise and speak out about poor consumer experiences - Optus has found this out the hard way .

4. Getting your business started in social media

Social Media is here to stay and understanding how your business can benefit from it is very important to your marketing and communication strategy. If you are new to it (and most people are) start by looking at the different types and research what methods could work for you, then see how your customers, prospects and importantly your competitors are interacting online. This will provide you with the information to get started and could be a great starting point to a long and healthy social presence for your company.