By Emily Rozanski
Social media Web sites provide small businesses the opportunity to cost effectively reach their target markets where they are spending a majority of their time online. In addition, social media Web sites could possibly possess some time saving properties related to news and information gathering as well.
A survey, conducted by Re:NEW Michigan®, a trademark of Eiler Communications, investigated the growing use of social media marketing in business by comparing the April 2010 survey to a similar survey conducted among Michigan businesses in December 2008. Not surprisingly, social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn all saw dramatic increases in usage in the time period between surveys. The biggest leaps came from Facebook and Twitter; Facebook saw a 28.5 percent increase in usage, and Twitter saw a 30.3 percent jump.
However, a more unexpected trend was revealed by the results of the survey. Michigan businesses reported heavily using social media Web sites in seeking news and information.
However, a more unexpected trend was revealed by the results of the survey. Michigan businesses reported heavily using social media Web sites in seeking news and information. “We believe this is due to news sites directly posting on Twitter and Facebook and links of some social sites to news sites,” said Larry Eiler, founder of Eiler Communications. Survey respondents admitted to using Facebook, Twitter, and blogs just as often as they use more traditional news sites such as CNN, MSNBC, and The New York Times when they seek news and information. Many even reported using social media Web sites as their primary source of information.
What do these results mean for the future of both social media and news information Web sites? The benefits of using social media Web sites for seeking news and information are obvious. They provide the instantaneous results that people desire for instant gratification of information.
Also, the large amount of time spent on these sites and the great amount of traffic these sites see is favorable for spreading a story. But are social media Web sites sufficient in providing a business with all the information it needs? Or are they simply being used to find brief news items that require further investigation?
Do social media Web sites have the potential to make news information sites obsolete? Re:NEW Michigan® will address these questions and others involving social media Web sites in its next survey in October.
(Emily Rozanski is a writer and new media specialist with Eiler Communications, Ann Arbor)