The University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business recently studied the relationship between social media and small businesses and found that one out of five small business owners were actively using one or more social media platforms. Many small businesses are increasingly investing in social media applications including blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Small business social media adoption has doubled in the past year and is positioned to grow even faster in the future.
Small business owners offered detail on how they employed social media, how well it meets expectations, and whether it pays for itself financially. They reported that social media is time consuming, but offers benefits in building customer relationships. Its current use is marginally profitable, but owners expect a bigger payoff in the near future. Of those businesses using Social Media tools and platforms, here is what they are doing:
Source: The State of Small Business December 2009 Survey of Small Business Success by University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business
Many small business owners are beginning to believe social media can help them generate new business. Half of those surveyed found the time it takes to use social media sites was more than expected.
Facebook and LinkedIn have become the main networks and platforms for small business owners. Only a quarter of those using social media use Twitter for external communications, and a sixth use Twitter as a service channel.
45 percent of those using social media expect to make a profit from using social media, while only 9 percent expect to lose money. The cost benefit can be hard to measure and is sometimes subjective, but by and large, small businesses feel the medium is breaking even now but will yield a positive return. It is likely that small business owners are continually learning to use the medium more effectively, while they have gotten over the initial costs of setting up and the learning curve.
There are a clear advantages for competitive small businesses using new media tools and platforms.
- They will be first to ferret out new niche business leads.
- They will get a big head start engaging new customers and millennials.
- They will be the first to get comfortable with the ever changing social media communication styles and technical platforms.
- They will be better at reputation preservation because they are listening in on these new channels.
Social media now gets more pages views daily than Google. Thirty-six per cent plus of all internet hours are spent in SM networking spaces. Congratulations to the 20% of small business adopting. The rewards are yours.
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