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Small Businesses are Failing at Social Media

Small Businesses are Failing at Social Media

Posted on: 7th March 2012by: Seamus BreslinPosted in: Posts, Social MediaComments: 0

Social media promises so much—the numbers are staggering and everyone’s involvement is on the rise, but why is the average small business finding it so hard to realise the potential of these social channels?

You’ve been mis-sold!

Because of its widespread adoption, businesses have a good notion that social media can be used to attract more potential customers, increase brand awareness and engage regularly with existing customers.

They set up a Facebook page and Twitter account—some even attempt a blog—then they publish a few tweets, write one or two blogs, add all their details to the Facebook page and ask all their friends to ‘Like’ the page. Then what? No mad rush of orders through the telephone or website, no 5,000 Likes on Facebook, or 1,000 Followers on Twitter. “This social media stuff isn’t all it’s cracked up to be!”

Does this sound like you?

Well you can be forgiven for being disheartened and confused. You were told that social media is FREE, millions of people use it and you can potentially reach them all. Well, whilst this is all strictly correct, in truth, you’ve been mis-sold.

  • Social media is not FREE—unless you work for nothing or your employees work for nothing. Unless you don’t value your leisure time or feel you can take on another career. A successful implementation of social media requires a lot of resources and commitment—regular engagement with people on Facebook, Twitter, writing blog posts, reading a lot around your own subject so that you can formulate good content. It’s all very time consuming.
  • You need certain skills—most small business owners are too busy running their shop or organisation to be well-versed in how social media works. Attempting to read up on this subject and tackle it yourself draws you away from your core activity of running your business. The truth is, you are unlikely to have the necessary skills to pull this off successfully yourself.
  • Not all social channels are right for your business—that’s like saying all your customers use every channel and that you should have a presence or commitment to them all. It’s the old, ‘casting the net wide and hoping for the best’ approach and because of the massive potential audience out there, you can be forgiven for thinking you’ll catch the odd prospect.
  • Ideas of success—so, what were you expecting from your social media efforts? More sales, greater brand awareness, more Likes on Facebook? The trouble is, most small businesses fail to identify their key goal here, loosely citing more sales or more Likes as their guide to success, without really setting thinking this through.

So what can a small business do to exploit this online potential? First of all, decide whether it is worth your time and money to invest in these channels. You can get a FREE analysis report from butterCloudHQ to help you make an informed choice—simply download our ‘getting to know you’ questionnaire and submit it to us. We’ll give you a totally unbiased perspective for your business.