What is the value of social media to small firms? Ben Pinnington says a recent survey by the Forum of Private Business shows some owner managers are shunning the future.
This week a friend of mine sent me the results of a survey into social media by my former employers the small business lobby group the Forum of Private Business (FPB). 5,800 principals of smaller businesses were questioned on opinions relating to social media. 52% use websites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. However, 21% of this number described social networking sites as ‘not useful’ and 6% declared them as ‘useless’. 18% said they are ‘useful’ and only 7% regard them as ‘very useful’. 19% of the total figure do not have a website.
I know my friend is an arch sceptic of social media on sensible grounds namely the only questions that count – what is the impact on the bottom line? And how much staff time does it use and what are the demonstrable returns? I accept the obviously validity of these questions. However, I have been thinking for some time that social media looks, feels, sounds and smells like the future. This is not a passing fad. In that sense it is distinctly redolent of the emergence of email. Ten and a half years ago working as a reporter at the Chester Chronicle I remember the internet being installed on a single computer in the editors office. The first trickle of emails began coming through mainly from readers very few press releases.
By the end of the year 2000 email had detonated. Its impact was atomic. That initial trickle had become a flood. And today, as we all know so well, email has long since smashed through the giant dam. It now immerses the working world.
Again thinking back to 2000 I remember becoming a press officer that year and spending hours next to a fax machine onerously sending out 20 press releases an hour. Within months the fax had become a dinosaur, in media terms anyway, rendered obsolete by email database programmes that sent out press releases to thousands of journalists in a matter of seconds. This was an astonishing revolution in PR terms. It hurled open the gates to communicate to a hitherto unreachable mass audience of national, regional and trade media. Its impact was, and is like, the Beatles going from the Cavern to the Shea Stadium.
The point I made to my sceptical friend is that while the FPB’s survey results are unsurprising I would advise business owners against King Canute like shunning of social media. Here we invest time in social media for our clients. Yes Linked in and Twitter are finding their feet and their influence is limited but the tide is rapidly rising. Those who do not grasp this risk missing out on a massive sales trick and it will take time for them to catch up.
Twitter is a good example of a social networking site whose power and news value has grown beyond recognition over the last two years. It used to be a quirky news novelty now it is part of the media’s staple diet. As such my appreciation of Twitter is changing. I used to dismiss it as an utterly banal form of communication. But I now see it is possible to tweet with substance by, for example, attaching a weblink in the tweet to a longer article and using the tweet itself as a headline. Moreover, I like the way twitter gives snippets and snapshots of what is going on day to day in a business. This gives a different, more immediate and dynamic insight into the operations of a business than up dating a website once a week with a single piece of news ever could. Moreover as we see more businesses, politicians and police forces use it, it is clear twitter is finding a niche for itself as a serious part of many heavyweight firms and organisations communications strategies. Commercially time will tell how much it can deliver to the bottom line – I accept the jury is out on that. I do sense however that the impact has begun and will become greater. In terms of returning value for staff time providing it is managed effectively it is already a useful form of promotion.
My humble advice to the social media sceptics is to dispense with the crown and mitre and make for higher land. The sound of crashing waves is the future.
by Ben Pinnington