Many small businesses have embraced the concepts behind social media and in-bound marketing – primarily those in the B2B services and consultancy industries, where they make their money promoting themselves as opposed to a product. On the other hand many product based small businesses (manufacturers, distributors, etc) have done next to nothing with these new marketing avenues. Why? Because, I think, they think there’s very little ROI in it for them.
No-Cost / Low-Cost
But what investment are they referring to? The one really great thing about the new world of social media & in-bound marketing is that it’s either no-cost or low-cost. The major investment is one of time and to a lesser extent of creativity.
And what return can be achieved from these avenues? Here’s an excerpt from a recent article on “How Social Media Has Changed Small Businesses” from the Epoch Times;
Why Use Social Media?
There are two major reasons to use social marketing, Fladung (social media guru John Fladung) says. One is to establish yourself as an expert in an area related to your business, and through that drive traffic to your site; the end result being sales and referrals for you.
The second is to raise your Internet ranking by driving more people to your site—making you more visible in searches. “Really it’s all about SEO,” he said. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is using keywords to become more noticeable to the Internet crawlers, in turn, pushing you higher on a search ranking.
For example, the more people that visit your Facebook page, the higher ranking that page will get, as well as directing more traffic to your main site.
The Holy Grail?
Seems to me that a) establishing yourself as an expert and b) raising your website’s visibility, would be the Holy Grail for most of the sales managers that I meet in small businesses. So why haven’t they embraced it as an adjunct to their existing marketing channels. I suspect that the answer is simple – it takes time to be “creative” and at some point it’s just easier to sign a check to do it the tried and trusted way.
I’m reminded of a LinkedIn post where someone asked “What do you do when I client claims not to have the time to establish a social media program?” The succinct answer from someone (I wish I could remember who) was “For God’s sake have them hire someone to do it!”
Small business vs Big business
Returning to a familiar topic its certainly the case that Large businesses can afford to employ people who manage their social media program and small businesses typically can’t. As with creating content (see our other post on creating content for more details) that’s where a company like dsm-llc comes into its own – we can create and manage a social media program for you. In many cases a simple but well written blog is all that’s needed, but other avenues such as LinkedIn and Facebook can be explored for little or no additional cost.
Follow the link back to our main site and contact us if you think we can be of assistance.
John Tully