Social media might not be worth the time
The benefits of social media are obvious; it allows you to
connect directly with customers and it’s (relatively) cheap to set up, costing
no money to set up an account. There’s
also a lot of ways you can incorporate it into email, websites and other
materials to get followers and fans, so building up a base sounds easy. It’s a microphone that everyone should be
stepping up to, because if you’re not, your competition is. Right?
But what you never hear is that social media, without
question, is the most time consuming marketing channel you will ever
undertake. There is a level of
commitment with any one of these platforms, Facebook and Twitter specifically,
that you need to be aware of before you even consider using them. The other caveat is as you grow your base and
you get more followers, the time commitment needed to maintain your
social media properties in an effective way also grows.
The more people you have talking about you, the more you have to respond
and reach out yourself.
Wondering how much time it actually takes? There are varying degrees. Dell for instance has its own social media command center, which tracks 22,000 topics a
day. At Vistaprint, we have 70,000
Facebook fans and 10,000 Twitter followers, and spend on average 3-4 hours a
day monitoring and interacting with our community. If you have a group in the thousands, you can
expect to spend roughly an hour a day on your social media initiatives. Traditionally this has been time that
entrepreneurs or small businesses with a few employees simply don’t have to
spare.
The reason social media can be a bear for a small business
owner or entrepreneur is that it not only takes time, it takes diligence. You have to be on top of your social media
pages daily, because all it takes is one unhappy customer, spam comment or
potentially offensive content to really make your business look unprofessional
or distant. If you’re not ready to
monitor your Facebook page at least a few times a day, then don’t jump in in
the first place. Your time will be
better spent on a traditional avenue like email marketing, direct mail, search
ads or even networking. Those are
controlled environments and while they do need a level of consistency, don’t
require the level of commitment social media does.
So while social media CAN be a great avenue for small business owners, what you really have to ask yourself before getting into it is, “do I have the time?”
Have you had time to get into and really see success with social media? If so please discuss in the comments section.
Follow Jason Keith on Twitter at @jaykeith.
The author is solely responsible for the content.
Jason Keith has been working for and with small businesses in the New England area for more than 10 years, specifically small, micro businesses. Born and raised in Massachusetts and a former journalist, he provides a unique perspective on the issues facing small businesses locally and nationally.To reach him directly email jasonpkeith@gmail.com.
This is a personal blog. The opinions expressed here are the author's alone.