Why Should Employers Bother with Social Media?

By now your company probably has 3 or more social media accounts, and it has for some time. It is not always apparent why besides the fact that all your consultants and marketers said you should, and all your competitors do.

Metrics

Knowing what the right metrics are and how to measure success is another challenge. If Coca Cola has 91 million likes/followers on their Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter page, and your competitor has 486: Which should be the benchmark for your company? And are views more important than click-throughs? According to AdAge, the correlation between that click and a conversion is virtually nonexistent. Ug, that’s no help!

SM Venues

And deciding which social media venues should get your attention also takes some thought and testing. Recruiting companies obviously should be on LinkedIn, and while there’s a lot of hype around social recruiting, Facebook may not be the next best choice. For retailers the opposite may be true. It is partially a sector fit, and partially a company culture fit. Test it out.

Benefits

One of the main benefits to a company is the opportunity to build the brand. A Facebook page can be fun as you can throw in a little personality and more informality than you’d find on a website. This can help with attracting talent and customers. The LinkedIn company page is a great branding platform, especially in terms of connecting with and recruiting new talent and staying in touch with former employees. Sharing expertise via the right channels will get your company recognized as an expert resource in the field.

The Other SM

A crowdfunding site is really a social media site that serves to test out products in the market and acquire a customer base in the earliest stages. Vetting a new product or service through such a platform can fuel innovation, improve quality, create early adopters and advocates, and the ROI on this type of marketing is great for small companies, at about $813 for every hour invested in a successful crowdfunding campaign according to Crowdfund Capital Advisors.

Blog/SERPs

And social media is the best way to promote your blog. Yes, your blog – there are many reasons, but this is the key to landing somewhere desirable on the SERP (search engine results page) as continuous and relevant new content on your website is one of the leading pieces that search engines like Google use to rank your site. Another important piece is users actually coming to view that blog article your marketing team lovingly crafted. And search engines take into account your social media presence and content in searches. So get it out there on social media.

Engagement

Engagement on social media is key to so many things: top of mind awareness with clients, improved employee and customer engagement, fostering collaboration and communication with stakeholders, assessing candidates before hiring (and the corollary, being assessed by candidates) better ensuring cultural fit, driving traffic to your website. Engagement is contagious, so get your staff on board and connect with your advocates, clients, and industry.

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