Tweeting no longer refers to our feathered friends. It is another social networking phenomenon taking place in the wonderful world of the web. Apparently, if you don’t tweet, you, and now your company too, are not on the map of our global village.

And it’s not just on Twitter where you need to make your mark. If you are serious about social media, you need to have a presence on other social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn as well as video sites like YouTube and of course, you should write a regular blog.

The conundrum
As an individual, I get it. I can see the fun in sharing photos and videos of my latest holiday or child’s birthday party with family and friends across the globe. But as a business person, I still need some convincing. I am not yet confident that the investment I need to make to have an impactful presence in the online world of Web 2.0 will truly deliver a valuable return.

My predicament is further enhanced by the fact that Softline Pastel operates in the IT space and if we want to be perceived as cutting edge, it is apparent that we need to be active in social media. Unfortunately perception is reality. So, the fact that we are industry leaders with close to 200 000 satisfied clients and that 9 out of 10 accountants recommend our products appears to no longer be enough.

The business case
The bloggers and other promoters of social media present a compelling business case. They tell me that being involved in social media will drive sales, enhance relationships with my customers, strengthen the company’s brand and position us as an employer of choice for younger future employees who see it as imperative to work for a forward-looking company. No business person would ever turn their back on these deliverables.

The numbers also speak volumes with over 133,000,000 blogs indexed by Technorati, a search engine for searching blogs, since 2002. 77% of active internet users are also regular readers of blogs. There are over 200,000,000 Facebook users and at the time of writing this article over 2,880,500,000 tweets had been posted since the inception of Twitter but for an up-to-date figure click here.

But are these my customers?
While the facts and figures look persuasive, I am not sure how they relate to us in Africa.

And more importantly, do they represent my existing or future customers? I don’t know whether the owners of small and medium sized enterprises have time to follow the multitude of social networking sites – I think that they are too busy running their businesses and trying to make money.

Of course, as our products begin to infiltrate the younger, more mobile generation and the tech-savvy youth become our customers, my opinion may certainly change.

Keeping up with the Jones’s
I don’t want to follow a trend just to be trendy.

I am not sure that there is a role for us in this space. I don’t think that I, or anyone in my highly competent team, have something of real value to say to our potential ‘twitter-sphere’ everyday. To be honest, I would rather focus on running the business and would prefer that the team stick to what they do best; whether it be designing cutting edge accounting solutions or providing top notch customer service.

Considering that the world’s biggest and most loved brands are active players in social media circles, I have no doubt that our brand would benefit too. But, I am unsure how we will keep our brand presence dynamic and exciting and am concerned that to do so, would require additional resources and hence additional costs to the business. This brings me back to my original concern about the ROI of social media; will that additional resource push sales to such an extent that we could cover their cost and then some?