So I’ll be honest - I started out very skeptical of social media. I felt like I was too old to ever have to use Twitter. I complained flagrantly about the impossibility of creating value in a message under 140 characters long. 

After taking Social Media & Entrepreneurship, I guess I have to admit my attitude has changed. I may not be a frequent tweeter, or have any desire to check-in anywhere, but I can say, that I now see the use of Social Media channels, as an essential component of any company’s marketing strategy. More importantly, social media will actually very fundamentally alter the way companies interact with their customers, and the public at large. With over 500MM facebook users, 126MM blogs, 2Bn+ Tweets each year, social media outlets are fundamentally changing both the way companies reach out to their customers but also provides them with a much more content rich vehicle to do so. And while I believe this change will require greater investment in employees to manage all of these different social media channels, it also has a significant impact on the cost of marketing their products and services to customers. As we can see below, the greater the number of blog posts a company develops has a direct correlation with the number of leads they generate. This means, companies will need to add headcount to ensure they have individuals to generate content for these social media outlets. Furthermore, these tools provide real-time feedback about customer sentiments about their products. 

In fact, we are now starting to see hard data about the lead generation and customer acquisition that can be driven using social media resources. In fact, we’re seeing that across the most popular channels (FB, twitter, blogs, and LinkedIn) a minimum of 40% of companies have already started to employ these tools as a way to market their products to customers. 40%! that’s nearing the majority. And i’m sure that all new companies will actually use these tools as a method to significantly reduce customer acquisition costs. I’m part of the Entrepreneurial Greenhouse Program and there’s no question that many students actually reduce the overall customer acquisition cost as a result of using social media tools to reach their customers. A commercial during the superbowl costs a couple million bucks and last about a minute, a daily blogpost, or Tweet costs nothing, and can provide the audience with significantly more information and content. In fact, one can argue that these vehicles allow companies to create richer content for their customer, and provide seamless access to purchase their products. 

Now - let’s not go crazy. I’m not going to start Tweeting regularly, nor will anyone ever see me Check In anywhere, ever. But, I’ll at least admit my eyes have been opened to the unique value social media provides. 

@CanadianSK