In 1995 Newsweek published an article titled “The Internet? Bah!” In it was written that the internet was a passing fad and that on-line business would never materialize. An interesting quote from the article “We’re promised instant catalog shopping – just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obsolete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month?” Fast forward 24 short years, can you imagine business today without the internet?
Obviously the author was more than a little off in his assessment. We now take for granted doing business on-line. The way we do business today is transforming at a break neck pace. The internet has become like the wild west of bygone years with limitless potential and opportunity and yet, there are still companies waiting for the fad to end.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat and other networks are changing how businesses interact and engage with customers. We are witnessing the next wave of digital transformation which started with the web itself. The bottom line impact of this new media is proving to be a monumental shift in how business is done. With around 2 billion people worldwide on social media (more than one quarter of the worlds total population)
I think we can safely assume that social media is not a passing fad. In 2016, not leveraging social media for your business is comparable to saying the internet was a fad a mere 20 years ago.
Having come from a traditional marketing background, I see the potential with social media to cost efficiently reach a specifically targeted demographic in a way traditional marketing vehicles could only dream of. I have seen, first hand, many companies successfully leveraging social media to build brand and generate revenue.
In support of these claims, here are some relevant statistics: According to the Pew Internet Project, three quarters of adults who are on-line use social media. The millennials, who are tomorrow’s consumers, increase that number significantly. The average social media user is on-line for 1.7 hours daily (12 hours a week) according to Global Web Index. Today’s youth watches more YouTube than television. There are 1.4 billion Facebook users around the world who average more than 20 minutes per day, ever day, on that platform alone. Social media drives more traffic to websites than do search engines.
Can your company survive without social media? Possibly, but a better question may be why any business would not want to be where their stakeholders are. Your customers are on social media. Your competitors are on social media. 90 percent of businesses see increased exposure and more than half report improved sales from social media. Social tools are being used to streamline customer service, for shopping and commerce, and for product development, sales, and HR.
So, is social media a fad? The more than 1 out of every 4 human beings on the planet who use social media don’t think so. Imagine if you believed that Newsweek article and waited for the internet to fade into oblivion. Would you have a business today? Social Media? Yah!