SOCIAL MEDIA AND BUSINESS IN LAHORE

Not long ago, social media seemed so new and different that it was treated as an appendage ofsorts—a kind of marketing that should be tried only by “experts.”While that view still exists to some degree today, it’s become clear to many that social media is nolonger marketing’s new thing. It’s now simply part of the way we do marketing today.I believe that the proper way to view social media from a small-business owner’s point of view isas more of an evolution than a revolution.Traditional marketing tactics such as advertising, referrals, and public relations are still veryimportant, but social media tactics have now become a part of everyday marketing’s fabric andneed to be considered at the strategic level of your marketing decision-making process.So, rather than asking yourself if you should or should not use Facebook or Twitter, the questionis: “How can Facebook and Twitter help you achieve your marketing objectives?” It’s the same asasking how direct mail or having two more salespeople might fit into the plans.From this integrated viewpoint, social media participation can start to make more sense for eachindividual marketer’s needs and goals.Is social media simply today’s hot thing?Think you can sit the social networking craze out? Consider the following statistics.According to the online competitive intelligence service Compete.com, social media growthcontinues to skyrocket.• The top three social networks—Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn—collectively receivedmore than 2.5 billion visits in the month of September 2009 alone. Twitter grew by morethan 600% in 2009, while Facebook grew by 210% and LinkedIn by 85%.• As of this writing, Google and Yahoo are the only websites that receive more daily trafficthan Facebook. Current trends suggest that may not last much longer.• In fact, if Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s fourth largest.• The most recent count of blogs being indexed by Technorati currently stands at 133 million.The same report also revealed that, on average, 900,000 blog posts are created within asingle 24-hour period.• It’s been reported that YouTube is likely to serve more than 75 billion video streams toaround 375 million unique visitors during 2009.• The online photo sharing site Flickr now hosts more than 3.6 billion user images.• The online bookmarking service Delicious has more than 5 million users and more than150 million unique bookmarked URLs.So, you see, perhaps this social media thing is going to catch on after all.