Social Media and Small Business

We did a posting on October 14th on Customer Contact Options where we mentioned social media, but focused on the best use of e-mail and actually making a phone call. We got a comment from one of our readers that they actually thought the best method of communication was some of the new social media and provided several excellent reasons.

Now Reuters reports on a recent survey of small businesses and the results were surprising. While overall use of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedln have increased, three quarters of small businesses have not found such sites useful for increasing business. There are a lot of other very interesting statistics in the article about how small businesses are using company Web sites, advertising,  e-mail marketing, and other methods to increase business.

Comments

[Debbie Welch]

Can you share the "excellent reasons" for using social marketing? Thanks!

[Bill Hinderer]

Here was the earlier comment to our October 14 posting:

"Social media is I think the best way in contacting a customer. It gives access to share information easier, faster, and in real time."

For me (who loses everything on my desk), communicating by e-mail is great because I can always find what was sent to me using tools like Google desktop. However, I have resisted joining Facebook, Linked-In or even Twitter. As pictures of our grandchildren are now being posted on Facebook, I guess I'm going to have to join.