In the recent 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry report (download the full report here), the leading benefit of social media for businesses is increased brand awareness, as raised by 88 percent of marketers. Other benefits mentioned were:

• Increased Traffic – 72 percent

• Improved Search Rankings – 62 percent

• New Partnerships – 59 percent

• Better Sales – 48 percent

• Reduction in Marketing Costs – 59 percent for self-employed, 58 percent for SMBs

• Twice as likely to find qualified leads

Every day I’m hearing comments like “our competition is using Twitter, they have loads of followers, we’re loosing ground to them”. From a well know NZ musician “I have to use social media now to keep up, the other guys will get more gigs because promoters think they’ll sell more tickets”. Musicians think ‘Fans = tickets sales’ where the size of your Facebook account can influence the success or failure of an event. This may well be true but it still comes back to engagement and how frequently the musicians are participating with their audience.

If your business has not started utilizing social media tools and tactics proactively to grow your business, what are you waiting for? Chances are if you’re not your competition is, what will that mean to the viability of your business in 2 or 3 years time? Will you be able to compete if they have a massive audience thats highly engaged?

Food for thought.

For more discussion on Social Media for business see JustinFlitter.co.nz