As my business partner, Kyra Reed and I work to crack the code to social media and help set much-needed industry standards, we continue to peel back the onion and reveal critical points where companies are failing -- and failing hard.
And to really get this, you’re going to have to wipe clean your current understanding of social media and open your mind to see things differently. I mean, you can hold onto your preconceived notions but if you ever want your business to realize the full power of social, you know, the potential I keep talking about:
Something much more powerful. Something like a giant current of electricity connecting every man, woman and child across the globe. A power so strong and capable, that it can move entire countries of people to protest in the streets and spark viral videos to spread across the globe like a wildfire on a dry night.
Yes, that kind of power. But to really harness the full power, you’re going to have to do something uncomfortable. You are going to have to admit to yourself that you might not be doing it right.
Too often people -- and I mean, even experienced, digitally-savvy, top executives at powerful organizations people -- have a blind spot when it comes to this topic. They still think of “social media” as their company’s Facebook page or as a small component of their marketing department or as this ubiquitous, ambiguous, amorphous thing that is outside of their company, industry, scope or frankly, interest.
And it’s alarming.
I think most people know the stat that Facebook has over 1 billion users globally, 1.8 billion, at last count. But I don’t think everyone knows that recently (May, 2015), Facebook announced that 936 million of those people log onto Facebook daily. And Pew research published a report in April that said teens, specifically, go online “almost constantly.”
Now, if that doesn’t get your mind racing with thoughts of opportunity and panic of delay, I think the powerful statistics below should properly scare even the most resistant CEOs out of their myopia.
Because as enormous as Facebook is, when I say “social media”, I am not talking about your Facebook page; I’m talking about the future of your entire business. Yes, all of it. Everything: Not just branding, marketing, advertising and PR but sales, customer retention and loyalty, customer service, product development, HR, employee retention and loyalty, and even investor relations. If you aren't looking at everything, you are missing the entire world of social.
In the interest of helping social media professionals, I have also added the statistics to slideshare for your free downloading pleasure. Add them to your decks, tweet them, scream them from the mountain top and let the total system reboot begin.
Social commerce sales are expected to hit $30 BILLION by the end of 2015.
Social networks account for about 43% of all site traffic, with Facebook surpassing Google in 2015.
Youtube is the #2 search engine in the world.
Twitter’s search engine manages 2.1 billion queries daily.
67% consumers use social media for customer service and 66% stopped doing business with a company due to poor social customer service.
45% share bad customer service experiences and 30% share good customer service experiences via social media.
Social customer care costs around $1 per interaction while phone support costs at least $6.
Employees of socially actively companies are 40% more likely to believe their company more competitive and 20% more likely to stay at their company.
Up to 56% of consumers are influenced by social media for their purchase decisions.
So, now, are you ready to open your mind to everything you are leaving on the table or are you going to walk away letting all of "social" sit with a junior manager in your marketing department? Ask yourself that.
