Social Media Marketing is Crucial to your Business Success
Change in business is always the direct result of necessity. What we take for innovation is often born out of the simple need to do more, with less. Social Media Marketing is no exception. The recession made businesses sensitive to spending money and the widespread adoption of social networks and instant messaging channels, like Twitter, has led to an awareness of what can be achieved with a little ingenuity and some hard work.
A survey conducted by Regus shows that Social Media Marketing is on the increase with 7% more firms using it gain a firmer foothold in the market than last year. The survey results show that businesses are sensitive to cost factors. As they are emerging from the global credit crunch and the underlying recession that followed it they are looking at ways to better leverage their existing manpower and online connections to increase the effectiveness, reach and impact of their online marketing.
The Regus survey asked more than 17,000 senior managers and business owners globally about their use of business social networking. As expected, businesses in China and India are leaders in using social media to attract customers. The web gives them direct access to western customers who would otherwise have been difficult to reach and social media marketing engages with them so they get to know and trust companies which they otherwise may have not.
Businesses in the Netherlands and Mexico round out the top four countries most geared towards the use of social media for business purposes. Approximately 43% of U.S. firms (vs. 35% a year earlier) use social media to gain customers, the report says, implying there is much room for growth.
Continued on the next page
