Many SME owners adopt a DIY approach to social media which takes them away from actually managing their business. It’s a method that can back-fire badly. This post highlights the pitfalls and an alternative way forward.
Evidence from a recent survey points to a growing dilemma for small business owners. Many are embracing social media to promote their business but the opportunity cost of doing so is turning out to be higher than expected.
Conducted in September and October 2012, the survey by Vertical Response canvassed feedback from 462 firms, 93% of which had less than 100 employees and 43% of respondents were business owners. Whilst the research is US based, the findings can probably be applied to the UK and Europe too.
Managing Social updates
The survey found that 43% of respondents spent six or more hours per week on managing social media activity. Most of this was on updating Facebook and Twitter accounts. LinkedIn was mentioned by just half of respondents indicating a possible B2C bias in the data.
Blogs can work well, but…
Over half the sample managed a blog with 43% aiming to publish at least once a week. The problem is that 45% spend up to three hours to create a post with another 16% spending more than three hours on the task. The biggest problem cited was in finding suitable material to base the blog on.
The dilemma for small business owners
A third of the sample want to spend less time managing social media and blogging. However, research elsewhere indicates that almost 70% of firms find social tactics successful in generating new business. Stopping social marketing activity is therefore not something business owners really want to do.
That’s the dilemma. Social marketing is a relatively low cost activity that’s getting results but SME owners have a desire to spend time responding to needs elsewhere in the business rather than on content creation.
This is an area that warrants serious thought and consideration. Getting your social media communication strategy wrong can be very damaging to your business. Let me explain why.
The opportunity cost of your time
As the owner of a small business you’ll be stretched to cover all the bases. The benefit is that you’ll be most qualified to act as thought leader, as well as the person most able to take an item of industry news and overlay some added value for your audience.
However, if you don’t enjoy writing or don’t feel you have the right style or approach, you will end up spending much longer on the task than someone more able, and you may feel the output of your efforts are sub-standard anyway. That is time effectively wasted that could have been invested more productively elsewhere in your business.
Social media shapes how your brand is perceived
The material you publish is going to directly impact how your business brand is perceived by existing customers and prospects alike. Social media for business is different to that for personal use. The pressure to produce quality output is greater for business social media.
Your audience will view typos and mistakes as badly as those found in a glossy sales brochure. In effect, that is what social media is fast becoming – a key component of your online corporate brochure. Only instead of a hard copy brochure, your audience now expect to view your web site, downloadable material, blog and social media posts in order to obtain the insight into your business that was once only possible by reading a brochure.
Few business owners would trust themselves to produce their flagship sales and marketing material in-house. Rather, they would utilise skilled designers and printers to ensure that the most professional image is presented to the audience. Social media content is no different.
Unless you have a gift for and enjoy writing and creating charts, graphs, etc, you may be better off handing the task over to someone in your business who can focus fully on the job, or outsource the task to a professional. You’ll then be able to stay in control of the messaging by reviewing and influencing content before it’s published and still be able to dedicate more of your time supporting the parts of your business that need you most.
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Freelance copy writing and marketing support for SMEs
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