What is social media to you?

Nick Strong, MD of Franchise Intelligence was kindly invited to speak about social media for Encouraging Women In Franchising. Watch the video and see the article below to see his insights to the subject.

PART I: What is social media to you?

Most people know what social media is by the name of the different platforms, for instance Facebook and Twitter but for some reason many of us are perpetually mystified by the whole area. In this conference for EWIF (Encouraging Women into Franchising), Nick Strong sheds some light and confidence onto the subject.

If you are personable and friendly, and you get along with people easily, then that is probably the basis of everything you will need to know about social media. But for those who are worried or confused by the concept of social media within the work place, we will delve into some of the more pressing questions.

First of all, what is it? Why use it? And what’s new?

When you think of the term ‘social media’, what is the first thing that comes to mind? For some it will be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Foursquare. Maybe others will think of kids and the thousands of people using the platforms.

It is interesting to look at the difference responses. It is made up of a mixture of the platforms and the certain types of people who use them. Some of these niches do not have an overwhelming endorsement – for example ‘kids’ who use social media – as this leads people to believe what’s put on social media is just nonsense and nothing of real importance.

However social media has had a great impact in business. If we think traditionally, in order to reach to more clients, business owners would go to a publisher who would control a printing press, the distribution, and ultimately reached out to the community. For the business owner to reach that community they would have to pay the publisher to go through the marketing process for them in order to gain leads for the business.

The difference that has happened with social media is it has empowered the business owner to publish and go directly to the community. Historically, businesses could only afford to publish if they had a lot of money for marketing and paying the publishers. Thanks to social media, every time a business sends a tweet or posts on Facebook they are publishing. If is important to remember that once the article is published on one of these platforms it stays online forever and can be reshared all over by followers.

The main thing about it in terms of a paradigm is the person in the centre of social media is actually everybody who calls themselves ‘me’. So in terms of social media within business, the centre of focus is the business. The business owner comes up with what they want to say and who they want to say it to and target those specific areas.

It is up to the business to come up with something clever, funny or different for the content. This content can be both a benefit and a barrier. The targeted audience have many steps to go through before they become a lead. First have to find the content, then open it and read it, understand it, see themselves being involved with it and eventually transact their personal details to become a lead for the business.

Connect with Nick Strong Franchise Intelligence Managing Director