International Businesses Embrace Social Media as Mainstream Business Development Tool

July 9, 2010 by 1 Comment

The Daily Social Media Marketing Campaign News
By Howard Oliver, CEO, What If What Next, whatifwhatnext@on.aibn.com

Here are some of the data points from a new survey by Regus that show that while the most popular business function of social networks remains that of keeping in touch with contacts, businesses are also successfully acquiring new customers, supporting their retention efforts and interacting with customer groups:
– Fifty one percent of companies globally organize, connect to or manage customer groups via social networks.
– Two out of five businesses globally report successful new customer acquisition through social networks
– Fifty four percent of firms use social networks to find useful business information.

I would add that a smaller group of companies are using social media and other collaborative tools to gain competitive advantage through business model and marketing campaign design & innovation. If you scan LinkedIn for example, you will see hints of these efforts in the discussion areas of industry groups.

My suggestion: Be a Social Media Entrepreneur and play social media like a virtual harp.

Clink: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/July2010/07/c2462.html

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About Howard Oliver
The founder and CEO of What If What Next, Howard Oliver (holiver@whatifwhatnext.com) for more than 20 years has been an entrepreneur, writer, thought leader, PR Guru, business development strategist, technology evangelist, manager and consultant for numerous service, industrial and high technology companies. Howard provides leadership in the application of Agile and Lean project management methodologies for technology enabled social media marketing and PR campaigns that deliver revenue, customer and alliance engagement, and media buzz. Clients in technology and other industries recognize him as a driven, highly creative and disciplined thinker. He also created the WebVoyaging® brand, a market engagement methodology that optimizes the deployment of cloud based, best-in-class marketing automation solutions. The WebVoyaging® process is inspired by the great visionaries who conceived of and built history’s great sailing vessels, which helped establish trade routes and created huge wealth. An accomplished business educator, Howard has recently created the WebVoyaging® Master Class, a training program for organizations interested in implementing Lean marketing automation solutions. Howard holds an MBA from Wilfrid Laurier University, and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from McGill University. Howard is an avid sailor and collector of books.

One Response to International Businesses Embrace Social Media as Mainstream Business Development Tool

  1. Martin says:
    July 14, 2010 at 12:13 pm

    Navigating the sea of social media, who are you trying to talk to and what do they really need from you?
    Your work is excellent Howard. I suspect a lot of Senior Executives and Companies are inundated with social strategy ideas and need a good map, to help them use this massive new resource effectively. We have found that the best conversations, start with a few good questions, and then lot’s of really good listening.
    i asked one very senior executive, who are your major customer and market groups and how do they think about you in relation to social media? What would those groups most like to get from you?
    Now he is working on the answer to that critical question set, before throwing budgets around.
    Ps, he asked if there was a way to use real analytics to measure the money this makes…

    Reply

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