If You Don't Want to, I'm Not Going To Make You - But You Really Should Think About It

I'm not having that conversation again. Ever.

It's that conversation where I try to persuade a business owner that they ought to start using social media to help them create relationships with people who are interested in their products, promote their businesses and support their customers, and they resist the arguments in favour.

I am going to gracefully accept that some folk just aren't cut out for the likes of Twitter and Facebook, and if they lose out as a result, it's not my fault - however bad I feel about their losses.

However, I am going to take this opportunity to lay some information out for you to consider before you say that social media "is not for your business". Consider the following:

* Global social media usage is increasing 82% year on year.
* What you say on social media (and how you say it) is more influential than what you have on your website - and you think your website is worthwhile, don't you?
* The heaviest social media users spend the most online, on both virtual and real-life products and services.
* Dell computers have made over $4million in sales from Twitter alone.
* You have to be where your customers are - and they're on social media platforms like Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and 4Square.
* 19% of all Tweets are about customer service.
* Customer service is the fastest growing use of Twitter - which means customers are starting to expect to converse with their favourite brands and service providers on social media.
* AT&T, Nokia, and Samsung have at least 15 Twitter accounts each - mostly for customer service.

As an aside, I managed to gather all those statistics from conference presentations that are being reported on Twitter RIGHT NOW. So it's all current info, and it took me about 5 minutes to find it all. Useful, huh?

Do you think your customers aren't using this amazing resource to gather product and service recommendations from their contacts? Of course they are!

Apart from your time, social media is FREE (unless you want to develop fancy apps or fan pages). So, think about the amount of money you spend on press advertising, Pay Per Click campaigns, flyers, leaflets, business cards, networking and your website, and compare that to FREE.

Despite the solid statistics and information above, I know that there are a number of people running their own businesses who still think that social media is not a useful tool for them.

Well, if that's you, I applaud your healthy skepticism, and I understand that you would probably like some proof that relates directly to your business. Here's how you get it in 3 simple steps:

1. Do a search on Twitter, Facebook and/or Linkedin for the keywords related to your business, your service and your products (e.g. if you are an accountant, your keywords should include "accountancy", "tax" "VAT" etc). If there is a conversation going on that references any of these, and you're not part of it, you're losing out.

2. Have a look at your 5 main competitors. Do they have social media links on their websites? If they do, and you don't, you're losing out.

3. Do your competitors have Twitter profiles or Linkedin/Facebook pages? If they do, and you don't, you're losing out.

It's that easy. You may need to set up an account in order to perform the search, but don't worry - you can always delete it.

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