photo by jurvetson
A recent survey of small businesses conducted by Citibank Small Business found that three-quarters of respondents didn’t find Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter to be useful in generating business leads or expanding business.
Having owned two small businesses of my own, I can understand why this might be true. Small business people wear enough hats as it is without diving into the high-maintenance waters of social media. In the current economic climate, many are simply doing everything they can just to stay open. As Maria Veltre, executive vice president of Citi’s Small Business segment, put it, “… small businesses are very, very focused on running their business and on generating sales and managing their cash flow and doing the things that are really important, especially in these economic times.”
But the number that really floored me was that 86 percent hadn’t used social networking sites for seeking information or business advice.
Seriously? Imagine that there’s a vast pool of marketing, sales, finance, human resources, operations and other professionals who have been taught to offer their advice and support freely and without expectation of immediate reward. That’s the world of social media, folks.
Think of the Best Buy commercial where a customer asks a stadium full of customer service reps what kind of HDTV he should buy. Small business, you’re that customer. Now replace all the Best Buy blue-shirts with every business advisor imaginable. They might not write your marketing plan or review your books or interview prospective employees for you, but many will offer you solid actionable advice that, in the old days, still cost you a pretty penny.
If you take no other step into social media right now, at least avail yourself of the business relationships you could be building with minimal effort. Personally, I’d suggest starting with LinkedIn, which is essentially your Rolodex on steroids. I’m willing to bet that many of your customers and business partners are already there, so the time investment could be fairly minimal.
The survey also found that 42 percent of small businesses are making greater use of their websites to generate business leads and sales. If that’s true for you, then take the extra step of setting up a blog on that site. Enable those most interested in your business to keep easy tabs on what’s going on through your blogging. Setting up a blog can be as supremely simple as setting up a Posterous account and linking to it from your website.
Again, the time you spend could be no more than a few minutes a week to post a few short items of interest. Just make sure whatever you’re posting is truly of interest to your audience and not some lame attempt to sell something. Share your knowledge and expertise, for example, and build your reputation as someone who knows what you’re talking about.
Whether these survey results reflect the overworked nature of small business folk or the fact that we’re still in the early-adopter phase of social media, I don’t know. I suspect a little of both. And as someone else pointed out, Citibank is hardly expert when it comes to social media.
But the day is coming when social media use will be as ubiquitous as email and taking credit cards for payment (whether you want to or not). I suggest you get on board now and start learning to master this stuff.
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