smallbusiness.co.uk: Helping your business think big

Don’t be put off by the hype surrounding social media. This is a tool businesses can’t afford to ignore, says Adam Stafford, managing director at search engine optimisation agency Fresh Egg.

You can’t switch off from social media, it’s everywhere you look. Facebook currently has more than 300 million active users worldwide and that figure is growing at an exponential rate. MySpace has 60 million unique users each month and Twitter has reached an estimated 10 million users in just over three years.

The opportunities here are massive. Businesses now have the ability to communicate on an equal level with ‘social customers’ or consumers. A recent study showed that 70 per cent of people are more willing to engage with a company or brand that has a presence in new media. It has huge commercial potential, and is changing how we do business.

However, if you're planning to utilise social media for your business, you need to know who you’re targeting. Social media is all about conversations and trading information, ideas and free content, so you have to really think about what you’re going to say.

To really engage your audience you need to make sure that whatever content you’re creating, it is targeted and should have an impact. For example, you might have written an email and think: actually someone might want to read this, why aren’t I putting it on my blog? From there you might get it into your Twitter feed and onto your Facebook page. Then what started out as an email is now in all these different places, connecting with people and encouraging interaction. And that’s what it’s all about.