By QUINTIN L. GUNN, SR.

The landscape of social media has quickly replaced the standard way we communicate and do business. Google, Yahoo, and Bing can help you find what you want, but Social Media is where you talk about what you've found. It's clear to me that social media provides us with the necessary tools to reach out to a wider audience in real time, as well as find and communicate with family and friends. Social media has become an integral part of the fabric of our communication process.

Social Tool

Social media has completely changed the way we communicate. Social Media is being used to alert loved ones and authorities of possible threats and danger, as well as providing invaluable insight into the personal joyous milestones or desperation of some of its users. Instead of writing letters or sending a postcard, we now attach a link, send a picture or send an instant message via Snapchat, WhatsApp, Pinterest, Facebook - Messenger, Instagram or Twitter. We can communicate and notify family or friends in private messages with Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp no matter where we are in the world! In fact, Social Media has proven to be a lifesaving tool with Twitter providing us breaking news of the day.

Marketing Tool

Social Media is for brand awareness and brand building. Prospective customers look through your reviews on quality, pricing, customer service, as well as the taste, look and feel of products and services. It gives consumers the ability to verify your reputation or confirm via word of mouth in comments or review a doctor's services or companies' performance. People want to know what others have to say about you or your business. In business, it's the best place to learn what products or services are meeting the needs of the wider consumer population in general, but at a lower cost than what Google's Pay Per Click cost. Plus, it's a great word of mouth or viral marketing tool about your business!

Research Tool

Social Media has proven to be a great tool for data management which gives real time stats on consumer engagement. Using social media marketing tools, we now have the ability to view number of shares, number of likes, number of views by age, gender, location. Consumers can research on the latest and the greatest new products, services, music, videos, electronics, cell phones, pictures, etc. Plus, again, you can target the market by region, age , gender, and keywords. Social Media can help answer important marketing questions while gathering the research information needed to help make your business a success when optimizing important consumer information.

Challenges Up Ahead

The challenge I see up ahead for the likes of Google, Bing, and Yahoo search engines, is that while they continue to make modifications to their algorithms, it begins to create uncertainty and chaos in the marketplace and often reduces the consistent return. Marketers rely on consistency, and reliable information. Marketing agencies and marketers look to search engines like Google for guidance and insight. They use this information to realign their marketing plans, only to find that after six months, Google's guidance has changed. We see this now with their upcoming algorithm update for mobile searches, at which point it becomes necessary to re-engineer the entire marketing plan mid-stream to avoid revenue losses. Additionally, by limiting potential consumers to a local search result, they reduce the visual exposure of other brands for consumers to get access too. Social Media provides a more consistent outcome and more variety outside local search, because many of the individual connections are out of state, or country.

In the big picture, these may seem like small losses, but the impact on Google will be a revenue drain. I expect that businesses will begin to transfer their dollars to a more consistent platform, which social media is now becoming. The costly nature of paid search and the diminishing returns are making business owners take a second look at where they spend their marketing dollars.

Be ready to take advantage of the changes

Social Media continues to grow, expand, and drive consumer engagement and brand awareness. Every day more and more businesses Get Social and Stay Connected! Social Media Solutions for Doctors encourages every business owner to take advantage of the opportunities that social media can provide for their goods or services. Recognize that this platform is more adept at meeting the needs of our mobile population and new business start-ups.

How Social Media will additionally change again in the near the future is yet to be determined, so hold on to your hats and stay tuned!

Quintin L. Gunn Sr. is a Practice Development Consultant with Social Media Solutions for Doctors. Visit https://www.SocialMediaSolutionsforDoctors.com