According to a video by Simply Zesty, 85% of the UK is now online, and 64% of those people have profiles on social networking sites like Facebook, and social networking is now the most popular pastime pastime in the country.
With some effort, businesses can harness social networking to attract new customers and improve sales. By setting up a Facebook group for your business and having people join or become fans, you can quickly deliver information to them all, or organise events or campaigns, which they'll tell their friends and relatives about, and their friends, and their friends, and so on. It's an easy and free way to interact with a base of potential costumers and attract new ones.
But social media is more than just a collection of websites where people can interact with each other. Social media is a concept, and it's constantly growing and changing, and being used in different ways for different purposes. Just recently, Old Spice more than doubled its sales with a fantastic ad campaign which made use of social media. You've probably seen the video of the Old Spice guy who's in the bathroom, and then he's on a boat, and then he's got a hand full of diamonds, and then he's on a horse? Old Spice took that campaign a lot further, and had the "Old Spice Guy", Isaiah Mustafa, answer questions via youtube.
They quickly selected questions from fans on Youtube, Twitter and Facebook, created witty video responses, and uploaded them right away. They did this continually over two days, answering questions within minutes of them being asked, and it generated so much attention that Youtube's servers struggled to cope with the weight of the millions of viewers.
Statistics now show that Old Spice's sales have risen 107% since the start of this ad campaign. By engaging their fans and customers so actively and providing something that they enjoyed, they significantly improved their brand awareness and enamored themselves to their potential customers.
Obviously not every company has the money to create and manage an ad campaign of this magnitude, though, but it does prove that effort reaps reward. A good idea can quickly become viral and generate masses of attention. A simple, clever video can become a sensation overnight.
