So a friend of mine (on Twitter of course) posted this very timely and interesting link from Econsultancy:
UK retail sales directly through social media are forecast to grow to £290m by 2014 from £210m. The study, commissioned by eBay, also predicts that £3bn of retail sales will be influenced by social media by 2014. You can read the story here.
It’s the kind of story that makes you think, isn’t it? It’s interesting too that the study was commissioned by eBay, which although a worldwide online brand that everyone has heard of, yet eBay itself is not a brand that’s well known for its own social media presence, as this further piece from Econsultancy on brands making use, or otherwise, of Instagram makes clear. You can read that story too here.
The figures mentioned on the growing value of social media influenced sales, may be out of your league, and mine too come to think of it, but they do tell us quite a lot about the power of social media and just how powerful a tool it is set to become in sales and sales growth.
It’s clear too that the potential is clearly there for SMEs and smaller organizations to get on board with social media marketing, to start planning to become a more social business part of your overall business and growth strategy.
A social business is a profitable business. A business that is social to the core makes best use of limited resources and turns listening into actions, marketing into sales. Social businesses have the potential to grow because, for relatively small investment of time and capital, they are able to talk to, listen to and better understand their customers and use that socially-gained knowledge to best effect.
Start making your business social to the core and you can use the power of design and social media to get to where your business needs to be, while remaining flexible and have the ability to think and move fast in your maket.
‘Nearly half (46%) of social media users are already using social platforms while thinking about making a purchase, and 40% of users are actively deciding what to buy based on what they have seen on social media platforms, including reviews and recommendations, and this is only set to grow.’
Maybe it’s time to find out what people are saying about your brand, your business and your competitors on social media. Better still, maybe it’s time to find out what they are not saying and start saying it for yourself. With a little bit of help from us, of course.
