social media strategy. a framework that ensures you engage in a way that creates real value for both your business and audience.

More and more people use the Internet as their first port of call when searching for a product or service, and a vast majority of these are more inclined to visit online content that is recommended by their personal social networks.

A study completed in April 2011 by Outbrain highlighted that over 10% of visits to online content are driven by Social Media.

Our real-world social networks have always informed what we are interested in and what we are influenced by, and now online social networks make sharing information and recommendations (at an increasingly large volume) even easier.

A strong Social Media strategy is essential for any successful business, regardless of industry or offering.

Areas that may benefit your business:

• Relationship Building. Keep front of mind and positively impact purchase intent.
• Thought Leadership. Be viewed as the expert in your industry.
• Referrals. Utilise candid reviews that go above and beyond polished testimonials.
• Exposure. The more places you are, the more you'll be seen.
• Lead Generation. Find who is asking questions relevant to your services and/or product.

Talk to us about how Social Media can help to grow and nurture your client base.

Food for thought.

• Australia: has the most number of established users of Social Media in the world, followed by USA and UK.
• Facebook: the average user visits 40 times per month, spends 23 minutes per visit and is connected to 80 pages, groups and events.
• Twitter: active users are 3x more likely to amplify the influence of a brand than, say, a Facebook user would. Of the active, daily users 72% publish blog posts at least monthly, 61% write at least 1 product review monthly and 56% write articles for third party sites. What happens on Twitter, doesn't stay on Twitter.
• YouTube: as of Feb 2011, has 490 million unique users per month, with an estimated 92 billion monthly page views.
• LinkedIn: almost 12 million unique visits every day and has executives from all Fortune 500 companies.

Sources: socialmediatoday.com, facebook.com, pingdom.com, cappex.com, mashable.com, socialmediatoday.com