So you’ve been hearing murmurs on the news and in advertising circles about social media, and you know that it needs some attention, but you’re not sure just how much attention to give it. The jury is still out on ROI, and you’re not yet comfortable with the dynamic of Social Media metrics.

Here are some excellent reasons to engage in social media. These things alone are enough of a reason to move forward.

1. Valuable Insight
   How can a company even begin to change or offer better products or services without feedback on what they have?! Social Media is a great listening tool that can provide valuable insight into your business and products or services. Take Starbucks for example. They launched “My Starbucks Idea”, which is a website that allows their customers to upload suggestions about their products, experience or involvement. Once ideas are uploaded, users can vote on each others ideas and discuss them in further detail. The best part of this site, is that Starbucks actually implements many of the ideas and publishes the progress on the site. So customers know that not only are their ideas and opinions important, but they are important enough for Starbucks to be willing to implement them.

   A great example of how valuable customer insight is helping to shape an organization and create a positive brand experience.

2. Customer Experience
   When you make yourself accessible and provide avenues for your customers to reach you both offline and online, you are making their decision to engage with your brand much easier. Customers in today’s online world expect a few things out of the companies they engage with; honesty, transparency, and a dialogue which consists of something other than a billboard approach.

   A great example of a company doing this really well is The Home Depot. A spokesperson involved with their head office started a Home Depot Twitter account in May 2008. They started the account as a way to reach their online customers to help with projects, answer customer questions or problems, and to provide tips that Home Depot customers would find useful and helpful. They have 3,732 followers and much of their involvement consists of talking with customers (@replies). Clearly they have been successful.

3. Make Sharing Easy
   The great thing about having campaigns on the internet is that they can very easily be shared by a number of consumers. There are multiple ways for people to share content on the internet these days including; Facebook and other Social Networks, Bookmarking & Sharing sites, YouTube videos, Twitter, and lets not forget blogs, there are millions of them. The chances of anyone blogging about your static company website are slim to none. The chances of someone blogging about your latest YouTube video, Social Community, or crowd sourcing experiment are significantly higher. Why? Because these things provide some interest other than sales jargon. They are (or should be) entertaining, provide value, and offer a way for users to engage with your brand beyond the purchase.