Social networking sites are now very eminent to people of all ages. It is through this kind of new social media that people meet and create different kinds of relationships with other people. Facebook, Friendster, multiply, blogger, twitter and plurk are just some examples of these social networking sites.
As we all know, people join these sites solely for interaction and networking. But there’s this new trend going on in the corporate world where companies are now slowly penetrating the world of new social media, particularly these social networking sites.
To give examples, here are a number of instances where different kinds of organizations opt to enter the cyber world—that is, the new social media.
- For recruitment / For hiring
“Perimeter eSecurity is the trusted market leader of information security services that delivers enterprise-class protection and compliance for businesses of any size”. Aside from JobStreet.com, they also use Facebook in their recruitment.
Social networking sites may be very helpful for any organization in terms of hiring and recruitment because sites like facebook can serve as an instrument for companies to actually know their prospective employees more and most importantly, to start building good and lasting relationships with these people.
- For new businesses
FYI is an events team which specializes in debuts, weddings, and the like. It’s a relatively new organization and is currently using Multiply in their business. It is through this social networking site that they get their customers and continuously build relationships with them.
FYI acknowledges the fact that a lot of Filipinos now are going online; thus, they followed where their target market are. And as a starting business, going online reduces their costs and maximizes their productivity and profit.
- For campaigns
Unilever recently had their 7-day challenge campaign for Pond’s. In this campaign, Unilever tapped young beauty bloggers, gave them free samples of their pond’s product, asked these bloggers to try their products and blog about their experience in using them.
For me, Unilever’s use of blogs for their campaign is a good way of penetrating the world of new social media where a lot of their target markets are in. It is also good to know that Unilever acknowledged the fact that a lot of Filipinos are wiser now and are not anymore relying on advertisements about beauty products, especially those that have celebrity endorsers because they know that these people are already beautiful and flawless even without the use of the beauty products they are endorsing. So the use of blogs is just right because the accounts/testimonials are coming from real (ordinary) people, talking about real results.
These companies/organizations are just some of the numerous companies which use social media, particularly social networking sites for their businesses. This only goes to show how different kinds of organizations can utilize these social networking sites for their advantage and further success.
How about you? If you have your own company, would you consider using social networking sites for you business? Why or why not? 🙂
sunny side up! 