Is Social Media a Good Choice for Your Business?

A big part of our business is dedicated to helping our clients successfully engage in Social Media.

We see the positive effects every day, but Social Media is not for every business.

Here's our Social Media compatibility check-list:

• Audience:
  Does your product / service appeal to an audience that justifies the effort?
  If you supply specialised parts for an aircraft manufacturer chances are you won't appeal to a large enough audience to deliver return on investment and your efforts to engage customers could be better spent elsewhere.

• Shareability:
  Is your product / service something your audience will be happy to share with their friends?
  Treatments for certain diseases may not be something your customers are happy to tell the rest of the world they are using!

• Resources:
  Do you have the time, money and people with the knowledge and skills required to successfully engage in Social Media? If you don't have the people on staff, do you have the resources to out-source?
  Social Media requires a long term investment of time and money, but that's only part of the story.
  Social Media requires a team effort from all stakeholders in your business and demands a level of knowledge, certain skills and importantly the motivation to be successful.

If you're not sure whether or not Social Media is right for your business, here's my number 1 tactic: look at your competitors!

If your competitors are successfully growing communities and engaging their customers it means you can check off Audience and Shareability from the list, and this will probably provide you with all the motivation you need.

So it becomes a matter of Resources: Time, Money and People (either internal staff or out-sourced personnel).

More about this over coming weeks.