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I have been researching, reading, and listening for awhile now to the small business world in regards to social media and blogging. There are plenty of business owners and professionals in the world who accept social media as a new form of communications… and plenty who do not.
I decided to write a small guide for business owners to gauge whether or not they should be in social media.
10 Reasons You Should Not Be on Social Media As a Business
1. You would rather not change your business model of communication. You are content with direct mail and email marketing. You are right, they will be around in 5 years.
2. The only computer you have in your office is the black and green screen MAC.
3. You purchased a dial-up modem to “save money.”
4. You are still struggling with the reply and forward functions in e-mail.
5. You are convinced that the only people using social media are college kids and pot smokers.
6. You feel that the newspaper is still a valuable form of advertising.
7. You designed your logo in powerpoint or publisher and all brochures were designed in the same programs.
8. When asked about time commitment you whine about an extra 30 mins a day to grow your business.
9. Your website was designed pre-2005 and has not been updated.
10. You find that building “trust” in a marketplace is a waste of time.
If you fit any of the following criteria… do me a favor and stay off social media.
Kyle - this is hilarious!
Myself and several of my former interns just launched a social media consulting business. We were recently asked by a perspective client why they should bother to use social media. They happen to be a very large national software company. It's too bad I didn't have your post. Instead of the long, professional explanation, this would have saved me an hour of typing!
THANKS!
Interesting!
In the past, offline media was one of the major mediums to promote one’s business and brand awareness. However, with the increasing popularity of the online media and its positive results, more people are turning to online marketing techniques to build a strong business presence across the globe. There are several online marketing strategies we can use for our Internet marketing solutions, but SEO (search engine optimization) today has taken a stance much ahead of any other technique.
SEO brings with it tremendous scope for business improvement with improved keyword positioning, improved ranking and overall increase in the ROI and cuts down on the PPC cost extensively in the long run. This is a proven marketing solution if done the right way using the right techniques based on your website requirements.
I thought this information would be helpful for those who wish to promote their website and get great results.
I found your post to be pretty insulting. The health insurance company that I work for is debating getting involved with social media. We have up to date computers that we all know how to use and our website is updated frequently. If we could grow our business with just 30 additional minutes, we would say that's all the time we need? We don't think that newspaper are valuable because it costs too much for the leads generated and isn't very trackable.
Our debate is more about understanding that we need to be on message for 24/7 in social media and that we don't control the message. People can pretty angry about health insurance companies and any social media message we do could turn against us pretty easily. Therefore, we recognize that we would need to staff and plan accordingly.
Our google advertising, on-line advertising, on-line enrollment, and traditional marketing arrangements work quite well. So we are evaluating the additional leads that we could get through blogs, twitter, Facebook, etc and whether it is worth the resources. Or would that money be better spent paying agents a higher commission?
What would you tell a health insurance company that actually has a marketing departments staffed with people under 40 who know how to use computers about getting involved in social media?
-Dead Hedge-
I'm kind of confused on why you thought my blog was insulting. It sounds like you have everything in order to start a social media campaign!
The first thing to do above all is to make sure your entire company is committed to the idea of using social media. There has to be internal acceptance before an external strategy is put in place.
There are a couple of steps that you can follow when implementing a strategic social media plan.
Steps from top to bottom and then repeat:
Plan-
Listen-
Join-
Engage-
Network-
Build-
Manage-
and then repeat.
Please feel free to email me if you have any questions: kyle@getbrandswag.com
Kyle, you make it sound like every company should use social media as part of their marketing strategy (this post immediately made me think of David Denby's new book "Snark").
Some companies might not want the complete exposure that social media gives. There are companies (e.g. consulting companies) who thrive on getting business within their established network and do not necessarily need to market through social media. Such companies also might want to stay out of the spotlight. Have you seen many news article about McKinsey, BCG or Bain?
Even though social media can be a very effective and cheap tool in marketing, not every company needs to use it.
Hi Kyle,
I found your post to be insulting because most of the reason that you have for someone not doing social media is that they don't understand it. However, it is possible that someone decides social media does not support their business strategy or has evaluated it and chosen not to pursue it.
At my company, we do not have internal acceptance at all for the reason that I listed above. My main question is whether or not you have seen health insurance companies use social media vehicles where the message cannot be managed.
Health insurance can trigger very strong negative feelings unlike software. That's the issue with using social media that we are still internally addressing.
@Irina
I would never venture to say that all companies need to be using social media for marketing purposes. I will go as far as to say that all companies need to be at least listening into the social media conversation.
You are either going to adapt to the changes in communication or not.. that is your decision. With the baby boomer population exploding on Facebook and Gen X (28-40) reading the majority of the blogs it is probably time to at least start thinking about implementing some type of reputation management strategy.
@Dead Hedge
I appreciate your thoughts and I was not trying to be insulting.. a bit snarky at best.
First step would be setting up a blog and creating some content. For a service oriented industry it is important to become that trusted resource for information from the potential clients perspective. Screw facebook and Twitter. You start at the content side.
I am guessing you are going to regulated on what you can write about which will tend to stunt the growth of social media campaigns.
Those that get it, get it. I was the publisher of the Business Owner's Toolkit (www.toolkit.com) for two years, until recently.
@Kyle
You've got the process down. I'd just Yank out "listen" and make it an ongoing process by itself. As you suggested to @irina, it's the baseline. Relates to the recommendation below -- which I think you've also seen time and again:
@DeadHedge
I think the first step is probably to get your company LISTENING. I recently did a study of insurance relation conversations in social media over a three-month period. Most of those INSURANCE conversations were about HEALTH INSURANCE. Of this subset of conversations, you see A LOT of talk about companies that frustrate customers. When your employer sees the conversations going on around them, they'll find it hard to stay on the sidelines.
Stop using your companies pre-printed thank you notes. Hand write a thank you note! Hand writing is much more personal and it shows you care. More...
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