STUDY: 75% of Small Businesses Are Not Engaging In Social Media

847 days ago by Sarah Chong, in Uncategorized

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Despite the success stories of small companies engaging in social media, most companies do not see the value of it.

According to a survey conducted for Citibank Small Business, 75% of small businesses revealed that they have not found social media sites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn helpful in generating leads or business expansion.

500 U.S. businesses with fewer than 100 employees were surveyed.

It was also found that, to generate business leads and sales,

• 25% are using more online advertising
• 28% are using more email marketing
• 42% have made greater use of their company websites

Most small businesses are too quick to judge social media?

Unlike Dell’s huge economic success through Twitter, many businesses actually don’t see as much direct benefits.

Social media extends your online brand presence and helps you build personal relationships with consumers. Even if your brand image has been improved, the effects of it are not immediate. Customers are not going to purchase something from you just because you have done well on social media; but when the need arises, be sure that the you are the first brand they think of.

Another great benefit of social media is its ability to gather valuable feedback and product ideas. It is also a great place to extend customers’ post purchase experience. An ad can trigger them to make purchase, but social media looks beyond that. Unfortunately, many businesses don’t use social media for these purposes.

Most of them only care about immediate (one time) business leads and sales. Building relationships takes time and a lot of sincerity, but the result is increased customer retention and brand presence.

So tell me, which do you prefer?

Tags: Business, Social Media, Study

About Sarah Chong

Co-founder and editor of Penn Olson. A laid-back marketing student otherwise. Loves social media and twitters about everything! (yes even about the stranger who chants to himself) A huge Harry Potter movie fan who is extremely scared of geckos.

View all posts by Sarah Chong →

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pk2000

Stumbled here to read about the study but was most impressed by the great design and layout. Really cool.
http://www.facebook.com/brianarfi Fauzan Abu Ramza

Well, online stores can ONLY benefit from repeat order/past customer. so looking into social media and using it to generate ideas and input is great.

But what IF our customers do NOT use social media?
http://twitter.com/Sarah_Chong Sarah Chong

Hey there!

Thanks and I hope the content helped too (:

Keep reading!
http://twitter.com/Sarah_Chong Sarah Chong

While not all social media sites are appropriate for specific target groups and markets, there will be at least one that works for companies.

For one, Facebook has 300 millions active users and is one of the most popular sites in most countries. I am pretty sure Facebook would work great for most companies. Especially so if you are talking about online stores. If your customers are buying online, they should be savvy enough to use social media.
http://brandon-hall.com/janetclarey jclarey

Sarah, I think you said it all with this statement: “Building relationships takes time and a lot of sincerity, but the result is increased customer retention and brand presence.” I work in the learning technology field and the same thing applies there. I think some companies think they can just add an icon for a Facebook group and do the same old marketing push through it or, expect people to just “go there” and talk with them. The companies that understand what social media is about – interaction, community, networks, reciprocity, authenticity, etc. will be the one that prosper. Of course, social media has to be the proper channel and that means knowing where your customers are.
http://twitter.com/Sarah_Chong Sarah Chong

Hi Jclarey!

Thanks for sharing your own experience and confirming what I said. It really frustrates me when companies simply sign up for an account and end right there. I guess it is also important to hire someone who truly loves social media to handle the company's profiles. We can tell!
http://twitter.com/SteveMKLaw Steve Law

I agree, I'm working my last month as an intern for a social media marketing agency…because I'm an intern I need to stick to what I'm told to do, but I can clearly see that social media isn't working for some of the clients. Social Media needs to work in synergy with a business model, it can't simply be tacked on as an afterthought.

I read that smaller companies have more to gain from social media because they can mold their business model to fit the needs of social media far easier than global companies. It will be interesting to see how these results have changed a year from now, I bet it will look very different; 2010 is the year of social media!