Social media for Small Business when times are tough.

As the economic downturn continues to impact marketing budgets, more small businesses have turned to alternative marketing methods such as social media.

Tough marketing conditions encourage experimentation with marketing strategy, this combined with the explosion that is social media and this beneficial relationship has been created.

According to results*, levels of social media adoption increased from 12 percent to 24 percent over the past 12 months.

The research identified that around 1 in 5 small business owners are using social media in their business, which includes creating profiles on Tacebook, Linkedin and Twitter, but also other areas like writing a company blog.

Key Small Business Statistics:

75% of Small Business surveyed have a company page on a social networking site
61% of Small Business use social media for identifying and attracting new customers
57% of Small Business have built a network through a site like LinkedIn
45% of Small Business expect social media to be profitable in the next twelve months

Among the concerns with social media were the time it takes to create and maintain and online presence, along with the negative criticism which can be associated with some profiles – once you get to grips with social media you will see every piece of feedback as an opportunity (however rare they occur)!

All small business should invest time into this medium. The social media strategy is relatively low cost and easy to manage. 25 million people in the UK now have a Facebook profile, if you are finding it difficult to get started there is a huge amount of people that to help!
If it is tough times or maybe your other marketing strategies aren’t working. If you are a small business or large, Social Media Marketing should be part of your strategy and if you haven’t yet got involved why not start today.

* Stats from - small business success index

For more information on Social media an how to set up social media profiles go to https://www.improvemarketing.co.uk/social-media