Social Media Luv Blog

A Social Sales Specialist, Jim Keenan states that he is engaged in the profession of moving salespeople who were till now in the old world, into the social world, from a world habituated to unrelenting cold calling to one which attracts potential customers by providing relevant and educative information. Keenan stresses on the fact that making effective use of social media for selling results in increased profits.

According to a report prepared by Keenan’s firm on the impact of social media on achieving sales quotas, it was observed that 78.6% of sales personnel who used social media in selling, performed better than those who did not. The number of sales people surpassing their sales targets by more than 10% was 23% higher for those employing social media to generate sales. Keenan observed that users of social media came out trumps, no matter how the data was viewed.

Detractors may argue that it is just a coincidence that the best performers were the ones using social media. However, over 54% of social media users had at least one deal which they could directly attribute to their use of social media and more than 40% had between two to five such deals. Over 10% confirmed social media use as an important factor in sealing deals.

Analysis of the successful use of social media in selling cannot be complete without considering the time spent. Amazingly, over 50% of the people using social media for sales confirmed that this activity occupied less than 10% of the total time spent on selling.

Keenan observed that the top sites used for selling were Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Google. He also points out that over 75% of sales personnel responding to a survey had no formal education in the use of social media from their companies which is, perhaps, due to the management’s low level of awareness of social sales.

According to Keenan, selling through social media is not an all-encompassing solution but gives users an edge over the competition. If Keenan’s data is based on a statistically drawn sample, it confirms the positive effects of selling through social media on revenues, profitability and growth of the business.

It also implies that social media like Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Google Plus, Foursquare, blogs etc. are no longer a choice for sales people but a necessity.

Employers may need to review their policies concerning social media after a recent study has found that potential employees are less likely to join if access to social media is restricted.

According to the survey by Intelligent Office, a company operating in the virtual office niche, as many as one fourth of the potential employees would refuse any job offer which did not permit access to social media during work hours.

The survey covered more than a thousand employees spread out in US and Canada.

Employers also seem to be aware and understand the expectations of the potential employees with over a third of the employers surveyed permitting their staff to log on to social media during work hours.

Close to 47% permitted limited access while 20% completely cut off access to social media.

Khushbu Tilvawala of the University of Auckland says that in some cases, permitting the use of social media can result in increased productivity.

According to Kushbu, it is fair for employees to expect access to social media as these are people who have grown up having these technologies around and they make constant use of them, including for work.

David Lowe from the Employers and Manufacturers Association says that employers are aware that there are other things that employees are concerned with and hence, they allow some flexibility.

However he termed as ‘extreme’, the reaction of some people to refuse job offers only because they wanted to surf social media, even when they are taken on the rolls to do something other than that.

The research has brought to the fore the need for all employers to lay down appropriate policies concerning social media, detailing the permissible use during work hours and what employees may or may not post online as regards the company.

People who were interviewed by ONE News had varying opinions.

While one person said the decision depended on how good the job was, another remarked that a person is supposed to be in a job to work there and not to go on Facebook and hence it would not have any bearing on his decision.

A third said it all depended on how the social media were used. If the use was inappropriate then restricting access would be valid.

Strange things happen in the online world of social media. It is indeed surprising to find family members, who know more of your family life but little of your work life, endorsing you for various skills like media relations, blogging, etc. on a platform like Linkedin.

It is even more surprising that someone who has never met you and has had little or no interaction with you should endorse you for a plethora of skills.

The person endorsed may or may not possess, all or any of these skills but the more important question is whether the people making an endorsement have a firm basis on which they make their endorsement. When people go about constantly posting Linkedin endorsements about others they do not know and whom they have never met, one cannot but wonder about their standing and qualification to comment on the skills of another.

This is not a write-up denouncing social media. Social media are, for a large number of users, the preferred mode of communication. It has become a part and parcel of our lives and is impossible to ignore social media in the current situation. Ignoring it would be just as great a folly as someone dismissing the usefulness of the telephone some 50 years ago.

But social media suffer from inherent weaknesses as the endorsements on Linkedin show. Meeting people face-to-face is an altogether different experience and can energize a person. Younger people tend to live more in the online world but living in the real world has its own pleasures.

Marketing companies realize the importance of social media and constantly discuss their strategies for marketing on these platforms. The marketer can engage with the audience on a ‘one to one’ basis unlike the traditional modes of advertising which tend to follow the ‘one to many’ model. Marketers are still discovering newer ways in which they can increase their reach through the social media.

However, businesses can never ignore the real world and the relationships with real people. Real people are required when you need to present your case face-to-face, to put forth a proposal, to finalize a sale, to help a relationship with a client grow. Online contacts can make you successful but your success will increase manifold only when you engage in the traditional one-to-one communication which has been the accepted way for ages.

In 2011 the active users of Facebook increased by 55 million per quarter, which continues to be the approximate pace at which it adds users even today. This diminished growth rate indicates that the competition may be eating into Facebook’s user base.

Analysts also agree that competitors are gnawing away at Facebook’s user base but point out that with 1.1 billion users already on Facebook, there are few potential users which Facebook can target to maintain its growth.

Besides, Facebook offers a general type of service. With the users of social media maturing, they opt for niche service providers.

While a person can get various services on Facebook, there are other dedicated service providers who provide better services in their particular niche. For example, Facebook provides news but the news service of Twitter is generally better appreciated, Linked in is the place for those looking for industry news, jobs or business connections, Path permits sharing of high definition photos as well as communication with a more private and familiar group.

These competitors are being increasingly used not because they offer a new type of service but because the users can now choose the best from among many providers of similar services. Though not as large as Facebook these sites are experiencing a steady growth.

The weekly addition of 1 million users by Path and the projected revenues of close to $ 1 billion for the current year coupled with an increase of 13 million members by Linkedin are indicative of their growing popularity. Twitter was also declared to be the social platform with the fastest growth in the world by GlobalWebIndex.

Facebook’s messaging has losing popularity with rivals WhatsApp and Snapchat capturing the imagination of users by providing ‘over the top’ applications, using broadband instead of a multiple system operator for messaging. The month of January witnessed daily traffic of 18 billion messages through WhatsApp and 60 million photos through SnapChat.

Facebook has made efforts to reign in the competition with the release of its Messenger and Poke particularly aimed at its rivals WhatsApp and Snapchat respectively. However the new releases have not performed too well. Facebook Home, another messaging and chat app, has been rated very low by users.

Facebook as it stands, still has a great following and continues to grow, as is evidenced by higher than predicted revenues for this quarter. The company has to keep itself one step ahead of the competition by finding innovative ways to make its services more attractive.

The identification of the two people alleged to have carried out the Boston Marathon was possible only because information and photos received rapid and widespread publicity. This was achieved mainly through Twitter, Facebook and other internet websites.

The photos and the video of the suspects captured by a surveillance camera installed at a nearby store were immediately viewed by millions of people across the globe.

Richard DesLauriers, special agent of the FBI requested people for help in identifying the duo. People responded by tweeting and retweeting, posting and sharing on Facebook, the photos of the two suspects. This is indicative of the active involvement of citizens and ready access to information in today’s world.

Responding to Massachusetts State Police Col. Tim Alben for co-operation, spectators at the marathon scanned through their photos and videos taken on cell phones and cameras to verify if they had perchance captured the suspects. This involvement of the general public also had its drawbacks with people making a mismatch which resulted in unwarranted accusations against an innocent bystander.

DesLauriers cautioned against drawing hasty conclusions as this would mislead the public and create unnecessary work for law enforcement agencies which were already overloaded.

The two suspects were finally identified as Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, two brothers. Tamerlan was found to have made known his support for jihad, the Islamic holy war through his Youtube page.

Social media was again used by the Boston Police Department , who announced the apprehending of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev through Twitter. The message was simple and stated “Captured!”. It went on to state that the search was successful and that the terror was over and added that justice has won.

VOA got the news through a two way radio used by the police at the scene in Watertown. The mayor of Boston announced the capture to the officers stating “We got him!”. He congratulated and thanked the police for their efforts.

According to Sean Mussenden a teacher of digital journalism at the University of Maryland, this will soon be the normal way of investigations are conducted with active participation from the people.

While surveillance cameras, cell phones and social media all contributed in the investigations, the involvement of the public and their social connections was vital in revealing the identities of the suspects.

Social media, the new hype with the generation X, is ruling the charts with its omnipresent stature. Not only has it become a means to chat with your near and dear ones, but has also become a source of entertainment, news and fun, all rolled into the online forum.

As per the recent studies, social media has created a niche for itself in the valuable time of the people. More and more people are resorting to checking things online rather than doing it physically. May it be in terms of shopping online, reading news on online forums or connecting with friends, everything has become a cinch.

But if one was to delve into the intricacies, one would realize how much time a person is actually spending on such online sources. As per a recent research by Experian, people spend approximately 27% of their total online time on social media. If reports are to be believed, people living in UK, Australia and US (the largest dominators of the online society), are the largest contributors to the web space.

But this is not all? You may ask why; the answer to this is very simple. Not everyone has the time to sit and dedicate a major portion of their time logging in from their computers and laptops. This is where the mobile networks come to the rescue of people pressed for time. Social media on the move has become the new mantra and is ranging from people reading news on virtual sources, to playing games as well as conducting business online, all from the ease of their mobiles. With 3G and 4G changing the way people access the virtual world, everything will be done differently, no matter what anyone may say.

So, if one was to conclude, the evident points which come to the fore are that people will continue to use different devices to log on to the various social media sites. This is clearly evident as every human being is a social animal and will continue to be till the time social media is ruling the charts.

Good habits can help you a great deal but bad habits stick out like a sore thumb and when these concern your working on social media, they can give you a lot of adverse publicity and may become an obstacle, inhibiting the growth path of your page. Here is a list of some bad habits which will make your page a big turn off:

1. Requesting for Retweets and Shares:
Asking for retweets and shares, while creating a bad impression, does not serve the purpose for which these options were given. A person will generally not consider retweeting or sharing your post just because you asked for it and it may put off even those users who were actually planning to do so. The only ones who may retweet or share are your close friends who would anyway spread your posts.

2. Use of distorted images:
Sites are making increased use of pictures to convey a message. Use of visuals make the pages more attractive to the users. However these should be clear and relevant to have the desired effect.
3. Being overactive after a hiatus:
It may be necessary for a person to be away from social media for a period of time. Often, when the person returns, he may feel the need to make up for lost time through a flurry of activity and a number of posts. Being away for a long time is not a good thing but to return with a flood of posts only makes matters worse.

4. Not responding to requests:
Any queries or requests for help must be responded as quickly as possible as this will create a connection with the person. A time may be allocated only to respond to people.

5. Floating competitions for gaining Likes and Shares:
This is not only illegal on some sites, but suffers from the same drawbacks discussed in point 1 on asking for shares and likes. The people participating in such competitions are not followers of your content but just prize seekers and will desert you the moment your competition ends.

6. Abuse of Hashtags:
A post crammed with the maximum number of hashtags is repulsive. Use of three or four hashtags is recommended only to provide context or to categorise content.

7. Overuse of Widgets:
Overusing widgets to share on multiple sites may not always be useful. Share widgets should direct traffic to your target audience and you may need to choose only a few widgets to make them more effective.

8. Use manual posts:
Posting content across platforms should be done manually rather than through software which often is not able to achieve the same results as a manual post particularly in terms of aesthetics.

9. Do away with links within posts:
An article or video posted on a site will mostly have a thumbnail giving details of the link making it unnecessary to have another link in the text.
10. Creating Auto-DM:
Using Auto-DM to welcome new users is very impersonal and will defeat you aim in establishing a personal connection with people on social media.

It is common knowledge that the number of users of social media in India is growing. The number may go up from the present figure of around 62 million to touch 80 million by the time the next elections are due in 2014. Close to 97% of the present users are already using Facebook. Users are not only located in the large metros but smaller towns have also shown a significant growth in the number of users. In fact, a third of the users are located in smaller towns with less than 5 million inhabitants and a fourth of the users inhabit towns with less than 2 million residents.

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) which represents the interests of mobile and online value added services, recently revealed these astonishing facts. It also started a debate on whether social media can influence the electoral results. A study conducted by IAMAI in association with IRIS Knowledge Foundation concluded that Facebook would have a great impact on who people voted for, in at least 160 constituencies.

The recent increase in social activism by citizens, general protests organised largely through social media and a young population has reinforced these conclusions. The study considered the margin of victory in earlier elections, the number of social media users in the constituency etc. Researchers have also stressed that the number of users of social media is now sufficiently large to have a direct bearing on the outcome of elections. However the strength does not lie in sending mass messages but in the ability of the candidates to connect with the voters. The location of the constituency is also important as urbanised areas like Delhi are likely to have a higher impact of social media as compared to Bihar which is more rural and lacks widespread internet facilities.

Politicians are of the view that it is premature to talk of winning elections based on social media campaigns though they agree that the ability of social media to pass information on quickly cannot be underestimated. Therefore local politicians are seen to be paying a lot of attention to what is being discussed on them on social media when they hardly knew about social media itself till recently.