Riverbank It management

“Only old people use e-mail”, said my seventeen-year-old son. The young are busy communicating via instant messaging, text messages, Facebook and through whatever online game they are playing. Business might have taken over e-mail as a major form of communication but many millions of people have moved on to other media – the social media.

Here are seven reasons why you might want to use some of these new technologies.

1.    Marketing needs lots of touches

One of those golden rules of marketing is the seven touches; you need to ‘touch’ people seven times before they will buy from you. Even if the seven is wrong the principle is right. So why exclude social media from your marketing toolkit? You are just making life harder for yourself. You need to reach people so you have to use the media they use.

2.    Keep in touch with your network

You are probably already on Linked In. You’re not? Get on there – it’s social networking for serious business folk.

On Linked In you will see a link to Twitter. This enables you to do more with less effort. One brief announcement through Twitter also goes to all your contacts in Linked In. That’s a powerful way to remind a lot of people that you exist. This type of link between different systems is increasingly common and you should exploit the power.

3.    Make sure it’s relevant

With that power to send one announcement to almost every business contact you have, you must make sure that what you say is relevant. And that means relevant to your audience, not to you. Send short items of useful and interesting information and give your reader a way to find out more about you.

One very good tip I received recently is that many companies are blissfully unaware of the amount of effort a supplier puts in to deliver its service. Like the swan, they don’t see the vigorous paddling beneath the surface. While you don’t want to reveal all to your clients you might want to tell them a bit more about all the great things you do on their behalf.

5.    Exploit the power of WOM

What used to be called “word of mouth” is now known as viral marketing. Getting other people to talk positively about your company or your products has got be a great way to build business. Can you help people do that by putting useful short videos on YouTube?

Can you ask your network to help you find that specialist skill you need to find? Remember that your network expands exponentially – I can reach 25,000 people just by asking my LinkedIn network of contacts to ask their friends. If they talk to their friends in turn, then theoretically my network could take my message to over 2 million people.

6.    You have to be where your audience is

Ultimately your decision about how to communicate with other people hinges on where those people are. If they are using Facebook that’s where you have to be. Ok, I hear you say, your company doesn’t sell into the youth market. But maybe you do need to attract young people to come and work for you. It might do your business a lot of good to show through Facebook what a great place it is to work. And by the way, 1.5 million businesses are already on Facebook, including Riverbank.

7.    Don’t get left behind

Remember the old adage that the only constant is change. The world is changing and if you fail to change you will be left behind. Take a long, hard and imaginative look at the ways your business could exploit the opportunities offered by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and YouTube.