Facebook is now becoming a serious platform for business activities, including e-commerce and employee recruitment. The move has meant that companies had to get more serious about their IT department's role in managing social media and more thoughtful about their own social media image.
Here are the five ways companies will be employing Facebook in the coming year:
- Online video marketing
“We use Facebook as a tool to increase awareness of our brand and focus on small business and startups in the U.S. market," said Alex Ramjuttun. In preparation for its marketing efforts on Facebook, the company increased its IT budget for bandwidth and security-related investments. With increased marketing comes increased awareness, in addition to increasing our bandwidth capacity, we are also anticipating potential threats and have further increased our security efforts.
- E-Commerce
Retailers need to think about a larger Facebook strategy, one that will reach consumers both on Facebook, or on the retailer's site. The real opportunity is the integration of Facebook into the e-commerce site. Facebook is also increasingly providing ways for retailers to reach consumers in-store, such as with Facebook Deals, which should also be part of a larger Facebook strategy. Recently, setting up storefronts on Facebook has become another way to engage consumers and one that potentially could drive additional online revenue.
- Market research
There are a number of tools out there to help extract this data for insights on what products are selling, what consumers are talking about on their Facebook pages and what they are buying from your competitors.There is a lot to be learned from a company's most influential customers, and they're most likely on Facebook. There are privacy concerns here and Facebook doesn't make all data available through APIs, but it would be an IT challenge in how to get this unstructured data and make it useful for their organization.
- Customer service
“Customers that follow companies on social networking sites expect that they will be able to get a fast response," said Jennifer Fair.If customers are pleased with companies, however, the can also use Facebook to praise those companies, leading to a more positive public perception. In 2012, companies can expect to have to do more customer service online and dedicate resources to staying on top of online commentary and responding to it in a timely manner."
- Recruiting employees
Companies have begun using social media outlets to drive more traffic and engage potential candidates in new ways. While there are plenty of people looking for jobs, in some industries it can be a challenge to find qualified candidates with specific skills or experience. That's where recruiting employees through social media comes in.Facebook is enabling organizations to become more brand-centric and show how culture can be a tangible asset.
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