Skip to content

More evidence social media works for marketing

October 11, 2009

If If you’re looking for evidence that social media works for marketing, you could do a lot worse than today’s story in The Salt Lake Tribune by Paul Beebe.

Per Beebe, social media (Twitter, Facebook, blogs) has become so ubiquitous that businesses are using it to fuel sales and profits through social interaction with customers and clients.

  • Five years ago, just three Global 500 companies were using social media, today the number is close to 200. (Shel Israel, a Silicon Valley-based social media writer)
  • Almost two-thirds of retailers have invested in the social-media frenzy in some way and another 22 percent plan to get involved in the next year. (Technology research company Forrester Research)
  • Traffic to Facebook is up almost 200 percent over the past year. (Nielsen)
  • Twitter has seen an increase of almost 1,500 percent. (Nielsen)
  • Twitter tops the list of social media used by Fortune 100 companies (54% using), with corporate blogs at 32%, while 29% have Facebook fan pages. (Burson-Marsteller and its Proof Digital Media subsidiary)
  • 107 of the 150 companies attending a recent trade show staged by Shop.org, the digital division of the National Retail Federation, were using Twitter.
  • Delta Airlines is evaluating additional opportunities within the networks they are actively using, such as Facebook and YouTube, as well as other networks, such as Twitter, and are developing a comprehensive strategy to enhance their existing efforts.
  • The companies using networks and blogs to stay closer to customers, for sales, marketing, customer support, recruiting, investor relations and product research. It is absolutely not a fad. (Shel Israel)

Look at the personal experiences and stories of the small business people Beebe spoke with:

  • Kalani Mack, the owner a Salt Lake fast-food alternative to expensive steak houses, attributes the opening of a second restaurant solely to Facebook, on which the restaurant has 1,1759 fans. Mack uses Facebook to promote new menu items and events at the restaurant, and gather customer feedback. “It was like a brick hitting me, I just realized it could be a powerful tool for the business, and the business could be a profile itself. Just being in contact with customers directly that way was huge. I’m not sure what kind of value it brought them, but I noticed that they enjoyed being in contact with their favorite restaurant.”
  • Melissa Coates, an account executive at a Salt Lake City-based designer of mall kiosks and trade show exhibits uses Twitter to develop relationships with businesses and find clients. Coates started following those companies who had Twitter accounts at the Shop.org trade show. She hoped they would follow her. “I don’t know how many followed me back, but a lot did. I went to the show wanting to target 10 companies. I got seven companies that wanted to do business. I was kind of shocked.”
  • Grant Gordon, a co-founder of a software company and who 2 years ago saw nothing in Twitter, uses Twitter to drive awareness of his company and keep up with trends. “All these experts, executives and prominent recruiters are on Twitter all the time. They will post articles they’ve read, things that are happening, questions. If you are not listening to that conversation, you are completely out of the loop. If you are not participating in that conversation, you really are not heard.”

Lawyers and law firms ignoring evidence of social media success like this do so at your own peril. You have more in common with the above companies and small business people than you think.

In addition, companies and small businesses using social media are more apt to hire law firms who do the same.