Been having a running dialogue in my head about small businesses and social media. Social media like Facebook, instagram and twitter.
Social media has become the new 'word of mouth' for small businesses. Can you run a small local business without that business having a Social media presence?
What are your phukers thoughts about this?
How does your company advertise? What's your target demographic that's using or purchasing from you?
word of mouth and having contacts, also conventions.
Its why you never burn a bridge, as people leave they remember you and will help you out.
At TerdWilson & Associates we believe in a strong social core.
You can, but you are giving up an useful marketing and communications tool from a purely business-related POV. It will hurt you the more the more your target audience uses social media.
Agreed. Traditionally, advertising is something that was seen as a gamble because you could only predict a probably response rate. If your advertising is free, that is no longer a gamble.
It seems foolish to not have at least some social footprint for an independent business.
The world is plugged in and people are using their phones to guide them in their purchases.
I started thinking about this after walking my local farmers market and noticing they all had signs with links to their social media sites.
seems foolish to not have
exactly what they want you to think, you are conditioned to feel that it is a necessity. When in fact, face to face networking will give you much more success.
I don't doubt face to face networking. I know first hand the old school hand shake way of getting your business to the right people. But there's more then one way to get your business noticed.
Short answer is yes, but some businesses depend on SM more than others. For example, if you run the only pizza joint in a small town, SM is kind of pointless. If you run a mobile food cart in a major city, the free advertising is going to be a lot more valuable.
This is a good point - deciding on having a SM presence should ask the questions Why do we have this? What benefit are we getting from this? What are the cons?
For a Pizza joint, what are you trying to do with the SM account? Do you want to blast out "Today's specials"? Do you want to announce a new flavor? Extended hours? Can you not do this via your website or an Email list just as easily without having to hit multiple platforms? How will you handle negative feedback, which is now public? Who will be monitoring these for negative responses? Can you trust that person to not make things worse and start a feud with your customers? What is your plan for messaging? Just random thing,s or do you have a specific goal in mind? Knowing the goal and the end result can assist you in framing your messaging. Are you seeking more customers? Newer, younger customers? More families? Less families? More beer drinkers? Less beer drinkers?
For the food truck - the answer is obvious, as you pointed out. You need to alert people where you are going to be, and when, and what you are serving. And you need to do this in a timely manner, BEFORE your customers have decided on lunch or dinner options. Them getting home after work and fire up Email after they have already ordered delivery or take out or already started cooking before they find out that your truck is only 2 blocks away and you are serving their favorite dish is a wasted effort. But if you had blasted out alerts to all the major players at 2:30PM, telling them "We will be at 23rd and 6th between 4-7PM tonight, and we are serving 5 different varieties of our world famous pierogies!" the customers can make that decision early. Again, the food truck has a specific messaging plan and a specific NEED that can really only be met through social media accounts.
Great point!
Yes, my question is very broad and there will be companies and small businesses who will survive without social media.
In today's world, I am finding even the small town only pizza parlor has their menu online.
Edit: grammar
I am finding even the small town only pizza parlor has their menu online
No doubt about that. I think there's a distinction to be made between social media and digital media though. If you put your menu online, the obligation is really minimal. Just the one time cost to make the site, small continuing costs to host the site, and the tiny bit of time it takes to update a menu when it changes. Compared to social media, where someone pretty much has to be checking it daily and interacting with customers.
Out of curiosity, is your question more about the labor to manage a social media presence, or a philosophical one about the relationship between internet and business?
You can. If you ever get to where you feel like you need some growth, it's wise to get on social media. Quite literally the community where I am is near a big military base. Guess what people do when they need a good or service? They ask and a ton of people respond. Those who can be pinged/tagged and respond in a friendly fashion seem eager to please and dependable. It has gotten to the point that people don't like to make phone calls unless they have to, text is the preferred medium for many. So the word of mouth combined with social media is very powerful for growth. If you're happy with your current growth then don't sweat it. Organic growth is more stable and easier to maintain. You'll still get references on social media regardless of whether or not you're there. Be mindful that even if you don't have social media, Google lists business and allow users to rate. People typically only rate when they're pissed off through that medium. Having your own social media allows positive reviews to happen more easily by "liking" you on Facebook. It's also really nice to see photos of your good/service to put a face/make it more tangible.
Yes, you can but the stats show overwhelmingly that your competitors will get far more business if they use social media. People join groups on facebook and also the whole friends of friends thing becomes a huge network where people will ask for someone to paint their house or mow their lawn and people will just jump in with your name just to show they can help. It pushes all the right buttons and it doesn't cost a cent. You do a good job and people will tag you in their photo of what you did.
People join groups on facebook and also the whole friends of friends thing becomes a huge network where people will ask for someone to paint their house or mow their lawn and people will just jump in with your name just to show they can help
I don't use Facebook but my neighborhood has a local page that I lurk and have noticed this often.
Yes, I work for a small business and we have zero .