Social media valuable for business

Social media - and in particular online communities - can be "very valuable" to businesses, one expert has told.

Ben Heald, chief executive officer of Sift, explained that this was because from a business perspective, such online spaces were a trusted intermediary between advertisers and the community users.

Speaking at the Intellect Annual Regent Conference 2009, he went on to give the analogy that a successful community was not a desert, nor was it an over-grown garden but it did need two things.

"It needs maintaining – it needs fertilising, pruning and planning. Secondly a good online network or community has sap – it's growing itself. It doesn't matter what you do, it's growing," Mr Heald stated.

And businesses are certainly spending more time on their online community gardens as according to a recent survey by BT Tradespace, 15 per cent of companies are now promoted on social networking sites, compared to seven per cent at the beginning of 2008.

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