The ROI of Social Media? Your Business Will Still Exist in 5 Years

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past five years, you’ve no doubt at least heard of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. Ten years ago, you had to have a listing in the Yellow Pages to be considered a legitimate business; five years ago, you had to have a website to be taken seriously; now, it is essential that you have a social media presence if you want your business to survive and even thrive.

Erik Qualman, author of the international best-seller Socialnomics, founder of the blog Socialnomics, and creator of the Social Media video series, stated:

We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it.

Here are some astounding statistics mentioned in the video and on the Socialnomics website: 

• Over 50% of the world’s population is under 30 years old. {data by US Census Bureau} 
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s third largest and twice the size of the US. population. {Facebook and world census data.} 
• 50% of the mobile Internet traffic in the UK is for Facebook. {The Guardian} 
• 90% of customers trust peer recommendations; only 14% trust advertisements. {Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey} 
• 93% of marketers use social media for business. 

Of interest to those of you in businesses related to wedding and event planning, Qualman also notes that successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertisers. This should come naturally to us!

Here is another, more sobering quote from Erik Qualman:

The ROI of Social Media is your business will still exist in 5 years. Welcome to the Social Media Revolution.

What do you think? Are you ready to join the revolution?