The introduction and substantial growth of social media has provided both a compelling obligation and an additional avenue of communication for new start up businesses. Twitter and Facebook are some examples of commonly known social networks, which existing and new businesses have utilised in a number of contexts; some to generate new customers, others to provide a forum for increased interaction with those who visit their main website.
Whatever the rationale for launching a social media provision within a business, the widespread acceptability of these types of networks can certainly enhance a business; or at least stop visitors shying away from them due to their lack of engagement in the social media phenomenon.
Benefits of Social Media for New Businesses
The benefits of using social media and networks to new businesses can be substantial. Most people starting a new business have friends, relatives and colleagues readily supporting their new venture from the outset. Inviting this existing population to engage in the business can increase the level of support given and indeed may generate immediate sales through them or people that they know.
This can alter the entire business start up model adopted by an entity and dramatically reduce initial advertising expenditure required to reach its first customers.
A further potential advantage of social media and networks to a new business start up can be the reduction of time required to administer customer contact. Many businesses are familiar with long Monday morning email queues and out of hours requests which are best served with urgent attention.
To a large extent, when communicating via social media, the formality usually associated with emails can be dispensed with and be replaced with shorter more succinct responses which deal with the matter at hand.
Greater customer satisfaction and a more balanced workload can be the result of this informal, yet widely accepted form of communication.
Potential Drawbacks of Social Networks
Social Networks are not for everyone; that is to say their effectiveness for generating increased business and/ or engaging with clients might be extremely limited depending on the type of business and the generally acceptable means of behaving in a particular industry.
Confidentiality would be a serious concern for example, if an Accountant or Solicitor interacts with a client over an engagement they are working on. Public networks and media are certainly not the means by which sensitive exchanges of particulars can take place.
Those in the two above professions and many other like them could potentially open themselves up to a tirade of advances, such as those seeking professional advice at no cost. Both the integrity of their Facebook or Twitter pages and their time management could suffer as a result of spam and other unwanted advances.
Summary
The internet through the public’s quest and diligence for good, concise and timely information continue to serve their interests well and so it is reasonably safe to say that each business, market and industry will use social media and networks according to their benefits and weaknesses.
For most new business startups these apparatus can provide great benefits if used appropriately. As most of the social networks and media are available free of charge, their utilisation bears an obvious attraction to many businesses. Indeed their introduction might in fact just be an extension of the proprietors’ personal Facebook or Twitter account and therefore avoids the requirements to learn new technology and processes.
View the Complete Business Start up Facebook Pages.