7 reasons why companies need social media

7 Reasons Why Companies Need A Social Web Presence

This is a guest posting by Nathan Egan. He is the Founder and Managing Partner of the Freesource Agency, LLC. Prior to starting Freesource Agency, Nathan worked at LinkedIn and has wonderful insight into the world of social media networking. Follow Nathan on Twitter: @nathanegan.

Participating on the social web scene has become near-essential for companies. For a growing number of potential customers, the majority of research, referrals, and recommendations are being done virtually through social networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace. There is an incredible opportunity for businesses to attract both customers and/or clients through social media.  Here’s why your company needs a social presence too.

1. Customer Connectivity
Social media is arguably the most powerful form of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology that the business world has ever seen. Your company’s social presence will allow you to connect with your customers in new and dynamic ways, that among other things, will give you rich data and feedback to help you grow and sustain your business.
2. Communicate with Prospects
I always tell my clients: “Connect to your customers because your customers are connected to your prospects”. Social media is an extremely efficient marketing platform and a sales prospecting tool. When executed correctly, a good social media strategy will generate organic, inbound sales leads through your current customer base.
3. Competitive Intelligence and Market Research
Social media is an incredible tool for “listening” to your competition and monitoring trends in your target markets. The massive amounts of accurate and real-time information you can collect through these systems can be leveraged in many ways, perhaps most importantly, you can make real-time adjustments to your sales strategy based on what your competition is doing (or not doing).
4. Customer Service
Social media enables your company to build brand loyalty in powerful and dynamic ways that were never before possible. A well-executed program will increase customer satisfaction, give you easy access to real-time feedback on product or services issues, and drive down overall operating costs.
5. Talent Acquisition and Employee Retention
As a whole, social media has changed the game of recruiting and retaining top talent. Learn to leverage social media properly and your organization will gain significant competitive advantages in terms of available human capital.
6. Global Reach
No longer is your company restricted to regional or even national distribution and communication. Social media allows you to publicize press, advertisements and company news to the world in ways that have been traditionally cost prohibitive. For example, a public television segment airing in a small geographic region of the US can now be uploaded on to YouTube and distributed through Twitter, enabling the segment to be viewed by an international audience.
7. Social Media is a Freesource!
Generally speaking, social media is a completely free resource and all it takes is your commitment to learn how to use it! Social media is here to stay, the websites like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc may come and go but this style of communication will not. You owe it to your business to learn how integrate the appropriate platforms into your overall communication strategy – your ROI will be tremendous!
Share the companies you know with a great social presence on the web!

• What advice would YOU leave for others that are hesitating to create a social presence?