Reduce unemployment through social media

A common question asked by many businesses is “how do I take advantage of the opportunities that social media marketing provides?”. Many people are either considering using social media, or have started to dabble by setting up accounts and having a go with varying degrees of success. But unfortunately there is no simple recipe that guarantees a positive outcome.

It’s now clear that many major brands are using social media networks effectively to build their brand following and undertake promotions. The bigger challenge is for less well known brands and smaller businesses – they have not got that brand recognition or the people resources to make the impact required.

To cut to the chase there are 2 options for the hard pressed entrepreneur. Either a great idea that spreads virally, or hard work to build content and an audience. The latter is probably the best way to build a loyal following. But still, how to do it?

The first step is to understand what you can achieve from social media. The truth is there’s something  for everybody – but it all boils down to resource. You need the right people to take ownership and devote a bit of time to reap the rewards. Research using our new product Social Churn has revealed that intelligent searches across networks can reveal fantastic results. As a minimum it can unearth industry news and competitor information, good and bad customer feedback, but it really gets people going when you find sales opportunities for them!

Then we get back to that resource issue. Larger organisations can divert resource from telephony to social media relatively easily, but if you are a smaller challenger brand then this is more difficult.

This is leading to the growth in outsourced social media listeners, who are sifting through the noise to identify those juicy bits that can be actioned. This is where marketing and telemarketing agencies can really add value for their customers. These streams of information can be channelled into their clients as sales leads, marketing, customer services etc. for action. The growth in these roles could be just the ticket for the growing ranks of the young unemployed who are social media savvy.  I am not saying this will solve youth unemployment but at least it may help!

Anyway, just to finish off, a sales pitch!  We are about to formally launch a product at the Technology for Marketing show at Earls Court 28th/29th February (Stand B6) that will accelerate this trend – go to www.socialchurn.com and see if you agree!