Try to imagine life today without social media. Can you? Do you want to? Most likely not.
Social media is everywhere and it plays a uniquely essential role in our lives that some businesses don’t yet acknowledge or even understand.
Social platforms have a significant impact on the way we communicate with friends and family, how we consume media such as videos, music and news, the way we shop for goods and services, how we search for new opportunities and apply to jobs, they even help us learn new skills and stay current with new technologies or industry trends.
Social media affects our lives in many more ways, simple and abstract that for the sake of this blog, we won’t need to discuss. However, it is worth noting that no matter who you are, where you live or whether you are active on social platforms or not, it has some degree of effect on your life.
So, it seems that the question begs to be answered:
Why have some businesses, including those in the hospitality industry neglected the opportunity to leverage social platforms to attract new customers and promote growth?
The Basics: What You’ve Heard vs What You Need to Hear
“Social Media is Just a Fad ….”
This might have been an argument made in merit back in 2007, but today, that assumption would be very difficult to defend. Let’s take a quick look at some hard numbers to bring the global use of social media into perspective.
In January 2017, the world’s population was estimated at 7.5 billion people, 3.8 billion (~50% total population) of which use the internet and 2.8 billion (~37% total population) that actively use on social media. That means that about 74% of internet users worldwide actively engage with individuals, groups and businesses on social media, and these numbers only grow with each day.
On top of that, 30% of all time spent on the internet is spent on social media, an average of 2 hours each day per person. That is a huge chunk of the world’s population’s attention you could potentially capture on social media.
Social media is not a fad, it is here to stay and businesses, no matter their industry or target market cannot afford to overlook it as a viable channel for marketing and revenue growth.
