I’m sure you are probably hyper-aware that social media networks have become a juggernaut for businesses. Whether that is growing the brand, reaching the right buyers and customers, using social media for sales, keeping up with customers and employees, or even finding top talent and growing your company’s employer brand.
Social media plays a major role in all areas of your organization and not taking it seriously, puts your organization at serious disadvantage in multiple ways. Essentially, you’ll end up a few step behind your competitors when you leave social out of your business strategy equation.
If we take a quick look at some quick statistics, including the three major social media players:
- Close to half the world’s population (3.03 billion people) are on some type of social media. (Statusbrew)
- 67% of consumers surveyed say they are likely to purchase an item or service they see on their social feeds. (B2C)
- LinkedIn has more than 610 million users in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. (LinkedIn)
- Facebook still reigns as the most popular social media network with 79% of internet users in the US logging on the site. (Pew Research Center)
- Roughly 46% of Twitter users are on the platform daily. (Pew Research Center)
This is what is driving many large and enterprise businesses to focus heavily on social media. Including areas like a general social strategy, paid social advertising, social selling, and also getting employees to be active brand voices on social networks.
Yet, many organizations still have concerns with their employees being active or sharing online. However, just like not taking social media in general seriously, blocking employees from sharing on social media is also a huge missed opportunity for the brand.
- 96% of the people that discuss brands online do not follow those brands’ owned profiles. (Brandwatch)
- 98% of employees use at least one social media site for personal use, of which 50% are already posting about their company. (Weber Shandwick)
In the below infographic from EveryoneSocial, you’ll find some interesting — and maybe even some surprising — statistics as it relates to your company’s employees on social media.
