Today, small and medium-sized businesses are living in tough competition with world giant corporations struggling to strengthen their positions on the market. There are a number of ways and methods to become a successful company and only using most or all of them will lead to prosperity; it’s necessary to diversify a specter of supplied products and services as well as to increase the number of marketing channels. The following approaches can be used: implementing multi/ omni-channel marketing strategy, bringing and promoting innovative, unique and useful ideas indeed.
From the other hand, gradually more and more people are getting involved in various social networks, blogs, and chats over the Internet. Almost everyone in cities and towns is equipped with smartphones and other devices which can help us to survive in the urban jungles without a necessity to use a desktop PC. Mainstream trend to live another life in the social networks is having a significant impact on the social media segment throughout the world. This cannot be overlooked and should be exploited for the benefit of business needs.
Social Media Management Tools
For instance, Social Media Management Tools help companies find, sort, reply, post, and objectively measure their popularity and rating on the social web market. Social Media Management Software (SMMS) platforms turned in must-buy instruments, since most e-commerce players realize and admit the influence that social conversions exert on every department of the facility, from business planning and product development to sales.
On the example of RepuCaution Brand Reputation Monitoring Software (a hosted SaaS solution for social media channels management and brand reputation monitoring) it becomes obvious how easy it can be just to use internet technologies to monitor the overall company social stats in the real time mode. Such system also brings new norms in the development of B2B, B2C and other e-commerce business models. Social Media Management Software platforms can be supplied as simple free services as well as enterprise-wide edition with monthly fee that totals in thousands of dollars.
Benefits include: structured online brand reputation management; rich functionality allowing to run social media campaigns, manage fan pages in different social networks, share media content, evaluate business reputation, check the social media stats and feedbacks of your brand; advanced SEO functionality improves search engine rankings and brings more organic traffic.
Challenges include: some social media tools can require considerable spending not everyone can afford; many platforms are complexly organized and demand additional personnel training; they can require supplementary integration with already existing software and probably premium services necessary to combine and launch them.
Researches & Surveys
The recent researches and surveys conducted by “Altimeter Group” show that among the 140 global companies, each one has an average of 170 various social media accounts; this number also depends on the amount of employees and the degree of company’s internet involvement. For instance, just about 48% of studied businesses had a coordinated social media program in the corporation. The stats also show that among 70% of the surveyed companies, social media policy is meeting business aims; only 43% have a common social media concept that tells only how the business goals will be achieved with social media program; in 27% of 140 largest corporations social media efforts successfully meet business aims due to the thoroughly researched business plan.
It is important to keep in mind that before launching any promotional program or campaign on the Internet, all companies (not just industry giants) have to understand that no software will be acceptable when there is no idea worked out what you really want or need. SMMS is a tool that is going to help customers to improve the way they do business. First, find out how to be social as a company, and then define which social media management system fits best for your social media activity purposes.
top Image: Laura Leavell
