Businesses Avoiding Social Media

According to Reuters:

"Three-quarters of small businesses say they have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn helpful for generating business leads or expanding business in the past year, according to a survey conducted for Citibank Small Business of 500 U.S. businesses with fewer than 100 employees."

The reasoning behind this is their concentration on running their business and ensuring it's fiscally sound. This makes perfect sense to me, because if you don't have a business to run you won't have any business to tweet about.

That said, it's still an important thing for those small business to figure out, especially if 75% of them aren't using it. On Twitter alone, if 25% of Twitter users are currently reached by 25% of small businesses, that leaves 40.5 million people who haven't been touched by possible competitors. I would say that's a demographic worth targeting.

Yes, it takes time and therefore money to run a business's social network especially if you want to cover all the bases. Most of that time, however, is spent figuring out how to navigate your way through the sites and deciding how to reach your audience. One that's established, it takes all of fifteen minutes a day to go through a routine on the basics (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin). High start up fee (lower if you have an employee who already knows how to work it all) with low maintenance cost. Even if you don't get direct business from those media sites, if you're staying an active and participating member of the communities you're getting exposure. Arguably, half the struggle of a small company is becoming known to begin with. There's not enough money to run commercials, radio spots, or print ads...but social media costs nothing except time. I would say that makes social media a pretty great investment.