Los Angeles Public Relations

A recent survey released by Russell Herder and Ethos Business Law, a Minneapolis based firm, surveyed a variety of business executives to determine whether or not they saw value in Social Media Vehicles such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Blogs, Wikipedia, Flickr, Yammer, Myspace, Delicious, Digg, Second Life (Dell actually bought it’s own island in this virtual world) and more.

The results of the survey were indicative of a changing attitude of acceptance towards social media by big business. Now that social media has the attention of big business they are either in for big money or big disappointments, depending on whether or not each individual site can come up with a viable business model (read up on Twitter’s failure in this regard – great service, growing massively in popularity, but no way for them to make money).

Most Popular Social Media Sites

The graph titled ‘Social Media Vehicles Being Used” shows the percentage of business owners who use the following social media sites for their company to improve brand awareness, recruit new employees, and improve customer relations policies.

Facebook: 80%

Twitter: 66%

Youtube: 55%

LinkedIn: 49%

Blogs: 43%

Wikipedia: 24%

Flickr:16%

Yammer:11%

Myspace:8%

Digg:3%

Second Life: 1%

Other: 9%

This change of attitude towards social media is astonishing, considering that most of the companies surveyed saw little or no value in social media as a marketing or human resources vehicle just a few years ago. Businesses Use Social Media for a variety of reasons, the most popular including:

• Enhance Relationships with Customers & Clients
• Build Company’s Brand Awareness
• Recruiting New Employees
• Customer Service
• Enhance Employee Morale

If your company isn’t fully embracing the power of Social Media, it may be time to bite the bullet and jump on the bandwagon. If you need help learning there are many consultants available who can help you learn – if you have kids, ask them – they probably already know.

Ben Cooke, President of LUCID Public Relations coaches his clients in the use of social media for business use and had this to say:

“Our clients hire us to help them reach their audience, today it is essential that they take advantage of the myriad social networking sites available to do so. There is no better way to stay in frequent contact with your audience then social media. There is also no better way to capitlize on a media appearance than to let everyone of your contacts know about it via social media”

Ben & LUCID PR are available for consultation & social media training for business use. You can contact Ben directly at (310) 859-4600 Extension 1 – Ben’s savvy internet marketing team will be glad to help you with some guidance, even if you don’t sign up as a client.