With LeTip and networking, social media is more relevant than ever in 2019. Companies which range from gargantuan multinational corporations to tiny mom-and-pop local retail shops are utilizing online social networks to gain prospects and engage with current customers. Some of it is tried and true, proven, and very effective at growing business and connecting people all across the world together online. Other services have gone dark and are dying off.
When Google+ launched as a new social network, it aimed to compete with other social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter. Two weeks after their launch they had 10 million users, and within a month that number jumped to 90 million. Only two years later they had over 500 million users. In the mid-2010’s, it appeared that Google was gaining a foothold on the social media sector of the internet. It didn’t last very long. Flash forward to 2019. Google+ shut down in April of 2019, mainly because of it’s lack of user engagement and dwindling growth. Why did this happen? What changed? This is just one of many examples of the changes that are constantly happening in the social media world in 2019.
In order to remain relevant and engaging, social media sites and applications need to remain consistently growing and have an active user base. All LeTip members are encouraged to participate in social media. Things like ease of use and accessibility are extremely important to keep capturing a worldwide audience. One network who has accomplished that very well is Facebook. Since 2011, Facebook has dominated the market for social media sites and is currently ranked as the most widely used and most popular social media website. At the time of writing this article, Facebook has over 2.41 billion users. To put that in perspective, that’s over 31% of the entire Earth’s population that is using Facebook today. If you are reading this article and still think social media isn’t that important, I hope you are starting to change your mind! Here is a link to LeTip’s Facebook page, like our page and you will see more LeTip content!
In 2019, Facebook has also rolled out a ton of new features related to advertising and marketing. You could be advertising your business on our Facebook, too! Also; have you ever wondered why it seems you are talking to a friend about a certain product, and then later you see an ad for it on Facebook? No, Facebook isn’t spying on you – they are using artificial intelligence and algorithms to capture things you’ve recently talked about or posted about online, and then target ads toward you. While this seems kind of creepy, it is the way of the future.
Google has many great success stories with very few failures. They continue to dominate the search engine market, having a market share of over 70% in 2019, which is also directly tied into social media through organic clicks, integration and backlinks. Did you know that one of the quickest ways to get your business to show up on Google is to sign up for a free Google My Business account? All it takes is a few clicks and some typing to enter in the info about your business and voila, you are now searchable on Google. People can even see pictures of your storefront and products, a map showing your business location, and customers can give reviews and rank your services. Not too long ago this sort of global transparency and immediate interaction for your business was unthinkable, let alone that it would turn into something this efficient and helpful to growing your customer base. Using Google My Business in 2019 gives you a direct advantage to manage your online business listings.
There are many more changes in 2019 for social networks, so many that it’s hard to keep track of all of them. Video streaming is more popular than ever, applications like Snapchat and TikTok are competing in that realm with over 1 billion user downloads combined. Users are also livestreaming video feeds on Facebook showing business expos, sporting events, celebrity discussions, and new product releases just to name a few examples. While these may not seem so much related to the business world, they definitely are. Companies like Kohls and Starbucks and chapters like LeTip of Country Club have even gotten into the livestreaming game.< You could even stream your showboating or chapter meeting. We also encourage you to put your own video on your LeTip Wired profile.
Another relatively new trend in social networks for businesses is having a chat bot. A chat bot is an automated chat software that answers simple questions to potential customers or current customers. Let’s say you run a restaurant, and someone wants to message that restaurants page on Facebook to ask about the availability of restaurant reservations. This is something that can easily be programmed and automated to connect a user to a restaurant, get them reservations, and have that relayed back to the restaurant all without an employee ever having to interact directly with them. While some people prefer the direct face to face or over the phone speaking to a live person, automation has proven to simplify both the experience for many customers and also increases the said businesses efficiency. Imagine all the things you can do if you had a “computer robot” available 24/7 to answer questions all around the world at a seconds notice, anytime, from anyplace? If you are interested in trying this out, Facebook already features a free version of a chatbot with automated responses. You can try it out today. LeTip uses chat bots, too!
It would be impossible to condense all of the changes happening in social media into a single readable article, quite frankly we could create a whole book on the subject. The bottom line is, social media is more important in 2019 than it ever has been. People spend more time on social media than they ever have in previous years, and that trend is constantly rising. If you haven’t gotten into the game yet, now is a better time than any!
For some more great articles on this topic, and to learn more about trends and changes in social media, I have provided some sources below:
• Top 10 Social Media Trends, from Quick Sprout Marketing Firm
• 16 Social Media Updates for Marketers in 2019, from MarketingLand.com
One of our East Coast reps, Dave Faccone, is hosting an online training during the LeTip President’s call called “Growing your business, tipping & chapter using Facebook”. The call takes place every 2nd Tuesday of each month at 9:30AM PST / 12:30PM EST. Call this number during one of those times to join in: (515) 604-9525 – Pin: 566688# …For questions contact dchristian@letip.com or smiddleton@letip.com
-Guest blog written by Jarett Branch, LeTip Web Manager
To read more of Kim Marie’s Blog, click here
Kim Marie Branch-Pettid
LeTip.com
(800) 495-3847
Over 40 Years of helping build businesses just like yours, everyday of the week.
