Social media is changing small business world

Jason Broadwater, owner of Rock Hill-based Web marketing firm Revenflo, will lead the presentation.

“Basically, social media is just a way to communicate. It’s a way to communicate with real people,” Broadwater said.

For an individual, the benefits of the medium may be obvious. But in the business world? Not so much.

For a small business, it’s become a question of time and money. Without the advertising and marketing budgets of large corporations, a small business needs to know social media will pay off before owners jump in.

Unlike big business, where a company may be willing to wait a year or longer to measure results, small business owners often need to know they’ll see benefits in a shorter period, Broadwater said.

Proponents will tell you having a Facebook page or a Twitter account doesn’t guarantee success for any business, but it does at least present a unique opportunity.

Social media marketing differs from traditional marketing, such as billboards or TV commercials, because it’s not intrusive to the audience, Broadwater said. Customers, or potential customers, choose to become your fan on Facebook or follow you on Twitter, meaning they’re already interested in what you have to offer.

It’s all about having a captive audience.

Consider this: Half of Facebook’s 400 million users log on daily, and the average user spends more than 55 minutes surfing the site each day. Twitter has around 75 million registered users. Millions more log onto YouTube daily. Then there’s MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr and more.

Essentially, supporters say, social media lets you take your message to people instead of waiting for them to come to you. Many large companies maintain Facebook profiles or Twitter accounts with thousands of fans and followers.

But the number of small businesses using social media is, well, small. Some estimates say just 1 percent maintain a presence. A Citibank Small Business survey last year found that 75 percent of small businesses haven’t found social media to be effective during the past year. Some suggested that was because small companies have been too preoccupied with day-to-day operations during a recession and haven’t made social media a priority.

But many observers still see tremendous potential.

“Social media presents the opportunity to communicate with an audience on a regular basis in the places that they are in,” Broadwater said. “The Web, and social media especially, has this uncanny capability to pull people together around an idea or a topic so they can have a two-way, interactive conversation.”

If you doubt the power of social media, head over to YouTube and search for a video called “Social Media Revolution.” It presents all sorts of mind-blowing statistics that show the extent to which social media is conquering the culture, the business world included.

If you’re a business owner, you can contact us today for more info regarding social media marketing and how your business can implement it as a marketing tool affectively.