Marketing’s Swiss Army knife

By Tarah Heupel | April 27, 2010

As first-time home buyers, my fiancé and I have discovered that we are woefully unprepared for jobs that require a certain level of handiness. While I have a small (pink) toolkit that has been deemed unfit for manly use, his tools are limited to 1) a hammer, and 2) a Swiss Army knife. Apparently, that little knife is a miracle worker.

In the world of interactive marketing, we have our own pocket-size tool complete with screwdriver and bottle opener, à la social media. Social platforms are serious workhorses that give businesses an opportunity to connect with specific people who might be interested in products or services, learn about them, listen to feedback, stay informed, build the brand, and more.

While a lot of businesses have fully embraced the new frontier, there are still a few hold-outs who want to see concrete proof of the power of social media. For the remaining doubters, I’ve prepared a menu of tasty stats, broken down into fun-size bites:

• There are more than 400 million active users on Facebook. That’s more than the population of the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada combined.
• Employees access Facebook more than any other website from work (sorry Robert!).
• Twitter’s 106 million users tweet an average of 55 million times per day – that’s 636 tweets per second.
• FourSquare, a location-based social network that’s barely a year old, recently added 100,000 users in 10 days, and is being hailed as ‘the next Twitter.’
• LinkedIn, a social network for professionals and businesses, has more than 65 million users.
• The most-viewed video on YouTube – Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” – has received more than 186 million plays in only four months.

Basically, if social media isn’t part of your current marketing strategy, you’re missing out on great opportunities to talk directly to potential customers. And if you think South Dakotans aren’t as social savvy as other parts of the U.S., think again:

• 1 in 3 South Dakotans is on Facebook, the highest per-capita usage in the country.

Social platforms are like the Swiss Army knife in your toolbox; they can do all kinds of amazing things, provided you know how to use them (stay tuned for more on that later this week). While there are still jobs that other tools work best for, it might be time to consider adding a combination scissors/wood-saw/fish-scaler to your marketing mix.

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