Saturday, 15 June 2013

Why are UK Business Dragging their Feet with Social Media?

It does seem strange to me why a lot of UK businesses large & small are not using Social Media to best effect? We have some of the best sales people in the world, But do they "Need to Wake up and Smell the Connection" 

Please leave your comments below I would love to know if others agree? 

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The UK seems to fall behind the rest of the western World when it comes to using Social Media Why
 
Looking at UK business large and small it appears there is still NOT the awareness that Social Media is a great platform to generate new business and promote products. Most companies still dont have a clue how to use this virtually free Media especially when compared to other advertising mediums. Once you have your ideas, products, company branding in place it takes very little effort or budget to create a strong following for your Brand, Product or even and individual. All companies have these in place for their regular forms of marketing, hence it would be very easy to uplift and transfer this to all formats of Social Media So why are business not jumping on this Free Marketing?  

 
Is it because companies/individuals feel there not internet savvy? Smaller business with no IT help on site worry about costs, time to achieve, extra work load? No one to dedicate time? Larger business with IT divisions still havent caught up with the world of Social Media although most companies use the internet for business and could not survive without it so why the lack of enthusiasm for Social Media, perhaps the older managers, CEOs and executives feel its a young persons medium! Hopefully not as their missing a trick and after all the younger generations will become customers at some point their all potential customers.

I have been spreading the word about this Revolution for years now and could always see the advantages for my business The Greenhouse.brasserie.com creating a Facebook Page to promote menus, events, new ideas and ask for customer feedback, which involves your customers in decisions and they feel a part of your business and love it when you respond and keep them involved. We use twitter not only to promote, but to congratulate, throw out new ideas, menus, news etc. Both these mediums helped us to create a valuable mailing list, which in turn helps me develop a by-monthly newsletter, which again we promote seasonal foods, menus and special promotions throughout the year Easter, Mothers Days, Christmas etc.

Yet I dont see as many companies doing this here in the UK!!!!!
  
Or is it the age old excuse we don't have the time? Thats like saying we don't have the time to find new customers, we don't have the time to talk to our current customers. Yet when given the opportunity to spend a fortune on un-targeted advertising newspapers, magazines, flyers or mailing lists that possibly gain no more than 20% return if youre lucky, businesses jump at the chance spending their yearly marketing budgets on the old formats.

Come on UK business, wake up and smell the roses, Social Media gives you a highly targeted audience to both promote to and talk to and does one extremely important thing as far as sales are concerned.
 
"SOCIAL MEDIA BREAKS DOWN BARRIERS AND CREATES TRUST"


Normal sales and marketing techniques cost thousands of pounds and hundreds of man hours, sometimes to just open the door to one good client.
I certainly dont think you should forget about sales people, on the contrary, customers still like face to face contact, which creates trust and loyalty, but I do think that all sales people needs a greater awareness of Social Media and what it can do for their business and often them as individuals.

So, how about UK business waking up and giving their sales people a hand with breaking down the key barriers. Help them to be able to communicate with existing customers and have the opportunity to find new highly targeted accounts, Social Media does this with ease. And I reckon that a lots of UK business are falling behind on basic training in Social Media within their sales teams.


Why do you think big business have "Find us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter"? Because they want to be in with the in-crowd? I don't think so. They recognise that one like on Facebook can get them seen by millions of potential customers, customers that are interested in their products, a targeted audience.
 
A like on Facebook is as good as you saying I trust these people so its OK for you to trust them to, why not add them to your list. That's a third person recommendation and we all know just how effective recommended business is and most importantly how cost effective it is.

Having a Twitter account is like having a search engine dedicated solely to finding people who are talking about your products this very instant. No other system in the world can do that so simply, business needs to get savvy, if you don't have the time to type a few words a day then don't moan if sales plummet.

Facebook, Twitter and other social media are not the sole domain of big business, any business can give even the biggest company a run for their money with social media and it costs very little.

Social Media is here to stay and in my opinion will be the future proof link to all marketing and customer service. Some media sites will not survive if they don't keep up and others will grow to replace them. Social Media will virtually replace traditional advertising over time as it is amazing value in comparison to other forms of marketing or advertising. With one click or tweet you can reach millions of targeted customers, try doing that on your TV or in the papers.
 
So UK business lets get going and start to build successful marketing and customer service media. If you wait your competition will have your customers and you cant buy a targeted Social Media presence of any worth, not yet anyway.


So come on UK Business Join the Revolution!!





Social Media Success - You Need To Be A Part of It  https://www.facebook.com/MichaelBev50?ref=hl


Happy Marketing 
Mike Beveridge 

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