As consumers flock to social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook (News - Alert) and LinkedIn, the massive popularity of these media outlets holds enormous implications from a marketing perspective based on the available demographic data alone.

 

According to a Cone Business in Social Media study, 60 percent of American companies interact on the social Web; 93 percent believe a company should have a presence in social media; 85 percent said they should not just be present but interact; and more importantly, 56 percent reported a stronger connection when they do interact.

 

In a recent interview with TMCnet, officials at Telecom Brokerage (News - Alert) Inc., one of the nation’s largest telecom master agents, said that social media outlets cast a wider net as well as provide a compelling connection to the company’s agents and vendors.

 

The Chicago-based company represents more than 60 industry providers and over 800 independent channel partner agencies.

 

“Utilizing social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, easily connects us to agents, employees, vendors and other telecom organizations,” according to Amanda Marquez, TBI’s marketing director. “Through our social media efforts and weekly blogs, we can reach out to a wide audience and quickly grow our visibility in the industry as a leading master agent.”

 

As TMCnet reported, by some accounts, as much as 20 percent of the content of Twitter messages now is about brands.

 

TBI has portals including: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and also posts a weekly blog at: http://tbicom.wordpress.com/

“These social media outlets are extremely trendy right now – and really have been for a while. They work better for some organizations more than others and I see so many companies in our industry using them poorly or not to their potential,” said James Curry, vice president of business development/affinity programs, TBI. “We’re taking the right steps to ensure that we proceed intelligently and I have enjoyed watching this gain momentum in our company.”

 

According to IT research firm Forrester (News - Alert), enterprise spending on Web 2.0 technologies will grow strongly over the next five years, reaching $4.6 billion globally by 2013, with social networking, mashups and RSS capturing the greatest share.