Social Media…Is it for every business?

Interesting discussion thread across the social media landscape.  In a previous blog, I was pretty adamant that social media tools can be leveraged to the benefit of almost any business.  My contrasting reference point was marketing expert Doug Bruhnke, Growth Nation.  In an earlier blog he opined “Let’s be real.  Social media is NOT for every business.  One of the biggest tests is if you can create a community of key followers who use social media.  If you can’t, then it’s not a good fit.”  My thought is that social media provides an excellent and very real opportunity to create a community of followers.  The interactive potential and sheer reach of social media provides any business the opportunity to find and create a community of followers.  And, those followers, while they may not be prospective customers, add credibility and added awareness to a business which increases the potential for business to grow through effective social media marketing tactics.

Enter blogger and a social media expert, Kyle Lacy.  I generally respect and pay close attention to his ideas and thoughts.  In a very recent blog he discusses social media for the masses.  According to Lacy, the strategic question is “how do I reach the largest amount of people for the least amount of dollars? Period.  Is social media right for every business? No.  However, you need to ask yourself…are my customers on social media?”  In my comments on that blog, I challenged Kyle in the sense that our defined market, as we know it, may not be on social media today.  However, that does not mean that there is no potential to discover a new or expanding market for our business through our social media activities.  Unfortunately Kyle did not buy in completely.  “In regards to social media being for everyone, I do not think it has reached that point yet.  When the Internet has a MASSIVE market penetration and social media has become the main use of the Internet…only then will everyone be using the tool.”  Respectfully, I do not agree.  We need to capture every opportunity to expand our business and use the social media tools available to capture the attention of those who are already using social media to connect with potential suppliers and business resources who will be using them later.

In conclusion, most businesses today need to embrace any opportunity to leverage a very cost effective medium to build awareness, credibility, and clients.  Social media, while lacking enough documented benefits and results for some skeptics, I am a firm believer that seizing the opportunity to be an early adopter is a sound strategy.  I would rather have a first mover advantage as opposed to being put in a position to play catch up with my competition.  What are your thoughts?

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