Social Media has played an important role in the growth of modern businesses. Due to the massive shift in global digitization, companies have been arming themselves with teams of people who monitor social channels, the performance of their brand and ROI of advertising dollars across channels such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinerest and more. With 700 million active daily users, Instagram alone, combined with the exponential growth of other social channels, continues to be a draw for consumers and businesses alike. Since social media channels provide this convergence of consumers and brands, it makes it quite easy for marketers to start to collect data on the habits of consumers and serve up relevant and engaging content. Sometimes referred to as KPI’s or Key Performance Indicators, this data has mostly been used for reactive purposes. This type of data can help marketers and product developers understand what specifically drives customer engagement. Questions frequently ask include, was it a picture that was shared and was it a piece of literature sharing key information that served an audience. Listening to what consumers want and serving them up when they want it is a great way to connect and build brand awareness and ultimately help grow the business. Monitoring the positives does not go without measuring the negatives or the “risks” to achieving business objectives. Social Media KRI’s can also be very helpful in understanding how to quickly adjust based on operational, financial, strategic, and regulatory risks. This significantly can improve how a business weathers a storm as well.  

Social media has been helping many companies drive improved performance to their bottom line. Now, in a world where companies are in hyper-growth, employers are focusing on driving higher performance & engagement from their employees with the use of social media and it’s having positive effects such as giving employees purpose and a space for finding like-minded people, faster innovation sharing ideas, and improved communication to employees. At FlashStock, social media helps drive higher engagement and participation from employees which enable them to be more connected through virtual based channels, share information through virtual bulletin boards, and to quickly collaborate on ideas and obstacles. When asked about the benefits that social media has brought FlashStock  Brett Mellon, COO, said that “the beauty of social media is the timeliness and efficiency that it brings teams. Traditionally lots of information was researched in order to uncover areas that needed improvement. Now the organization is connected and it is easier to see the response from employees and pivot because that is what happens in high growth companies.”