A Debate on Social Media Challenges

DEBATE ON SOCIAL MEDIA CHALLENGES

ByHammad Siddiquihttp://hammadsiddiquiblog.comEmail: [email protected]

WE ARE CONNECTED!

Individuals and companies are increasingly engaged in social media activities. Some are using it for advocacy, some for branding, but some still think it as a medium for youth to explore friendships, others feel it is an excellent medium for engaging people in debate, keep friendships and relationships alive.

The fact of the matter is that more and more people are now using social media for one reason or another. Some have concerns and some are confused. Perhaps this is the due to various age brackets, education level and language barriers, demography and digital connectivity.

EARLY DAYS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Bulletin Board SystemsFollowed by: CompuServe America Online (AOL), Followed by: Lycos Altavista Dogpile

FIRST REVOLUTION

Yahoo and Yahoo Groups& classmates.com and sixdegrees.com

REAL THRUST STARTED IN 2000

Launch of Linkedin MySpace in 2003 and Facebook in 2004

REAL REVOLUTION STARTED IN 2008

Twitter Youtube Blogs Google+ ……………….and many more

STATISTICS ON SOCIAL MEDIA USERS

Facebook: 955 million active users Twitter: over 500 million users LinkedIn: 174 million members Google Plus: 170 million Tumblr: 69 million blogs Instagram: 80 million users Pinterest: over 11 million registered

users

CORPORATE USAGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

In 2012 the Fortune Global 100 are mentioned 10.4 million times per month with Twitter transmitting 5.6 million of those conversations. This represents a growth in Twitter conversations of over 700% in just 2 years.

Corporate YouTube channels are averaging over 2 million views.  On Twitter 79 percent of companies are engaging via retweeting and

@mentions.   On Facebook 70 percent of brands are are responding to comments on

their walls and timelines.

In the last twelve months Google+ and Pinterest have entered the social networking ecosystem. Companies have quickly embraced these channels with nearly 50 percent of the Fortune Global 100 on Google+ brand pages and 25 percent on Pinterest.

FOLLOWING ARE 10 PUBLIC OPINIONS ON SOCIAL MEDIA CHALLENGES

Information overload is a major issue for me. Too much is floating on social media which ultimately confuses the decision making process. Also I am facing a major challenge in monetizing my social media. There are so many options; I am unable to find the one that is best suited for me?

  I think, the biggest challenge with social media is how to be ethical. There

no control on spreading rumors, abusing and threatening.

Biggest challenge - many companies are using it and they have no idea why. Just because it is 'hot' or their competitors are on it. The biggest challenge in my opinion is educating the market to treat social media as just another marketing channel.

I would say that the biggest challenge is the growing number of social media platforms. Off course, Facebook is the most popular one, but Twitter, Linkedin, Google+ and now Pinterest!

CHALLENGES CONT….

Social media faces several challenges - most of them revolving around the "So what?" question. 

- We're on Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn. So what? - We have a blog. So what? - We have 1,000 likes and 2,000 Twitter followers. So what? - We have a social media 'strategy'. So what? 

For companies there are three major social media challenges. First is to decide when to start their social media activities. Second is to decide on things that they should not be doing on social media and the third one is to decide on which social media platforms are relevant to them.

The biggest challenge of social media is to engage my followers in productive discussion. They all have their timeline that might not match with the time when I update my social media!

CHALLENGES CONT….

In my opinion, the biggest challenge for businesses to calculate Return on Investment (ROI). A number of businesses are using Facebook and Twitter for promotion, but they are unable to do the cost benefit of using social media.

I think social media is too time-demanding. It is almost additive and keeps us engaged in responding to tweets that are not really important and can easily be ignored.

  As a large company, fake followers, and fake hits are the major

cause of concern for us. We have recently started using social media for promoting our brand. But we are still not sure if we are getting any real benefits out of our social media activities. Perhaps it’s a relatively long-term investment!

I WOULD LIKE TO DEBATE:

Is there a need for an online forum for conducting social media trainings?

Will various social media companies collaborate in developing a curriculum for imparting social media training programs?

Is there enough appetite for a commercial venture for training social media on common user and professional user level?

What is next in Social Media?