Posts Tagged ‘Network Solutions’

Social media adoption by small businesses has doubled from 12 percent to 24 percent in the last year was one of the big take aways from the most recent edition of the Small Business Success Index™ (SBSI). This third wave of the report, sponsored by Network Solutions® and the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business reports that small business are mainly using social media to identify and attract new customers.

Social Media is a Call to Action and not just a Buzzword

If you use social media in any way for your small business you are probably saying “heck yeah” to that confirmation which you have known about for a while. Many small businesses however have been starting to figure this out and in 2009 the buzzword was also a call to action.

The report quotes Connie Steele, Director at Network Solutions, “Tough market conditions mandate small businesses to think and act creatively to sustain themselves”. “Social media can be the best friend for small business owners who constantly seek new ways to attract new customers and retain the ones they have at a relatively low cost.”

Also from the report, the SBSI found that nearly one out of five small business owners are actively using social media in their business. Small businesses are increasingly investing in social media applications, including blogs, Facebook® and LinkedIn® profiles. The biggest expectation small business owners have from social media is expanding external marketing and engagement, including identifying and attracting new customers, building brand awareness and staying engaged with customers.  Sixty-one percent of the respondents indicated that they use social media to identify and attract new customers. Listen to a podcast on how small businesses are leveraging social media for customer engagement at http://bit.ly/JayEhret

Really Cool Statistics

Small business owners use social media to attract new customers:

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

Small business owners still have concerns with social media:

• 50% of small business social media users say it takes more time than expected
• 17% express that social media gives people a chance to criticize their business on the Internet
• Only 6% feel that social media use has hurt the image of the business more than helped it

“Social media levels the playing field for small businesses by helping them deliver customer service,” says Janet Wagner, director of the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. “Time spent on Twitter®, Facebook® and blogs is an investment in making it easier for small businesses to compete.”

People Are Getting More Creative

The main theme of this edition of the report is “Creativity as a strategy for success”. From the report, the executive summary mentions how “Small businesses are highly successful in getting referrals from existing customers, but struggle to be creative and differentiate themselves.” The major ways that small businesses differentiate themselves from competitors are:

• Superior customer service (78 percent)
• Higher quality products and services (76 percent)
• Creative ideas to address customers’ needs (65 percent)
• Lower prices (44 percent)

Among these four areas of differentiation, superior service and creativity are correlated with competitive success, while quality and low prices make little difference to small business success.   Perhaps everyone claims to have high quality, making it a marginal strategy for differentiation, while cutting prices is not sustainable for small enterprises that lack the economies of scale to keep costs low.

About the SBSI Report and Other Key Findings

In addition to tracking how small business owners use technology, the SBSI Index measures how they are doing in six key areas of business: capital access, marketing and innovation, workforce, customer service, computer technology and compliance.

Other key findings from the December 2009 Small Business Success Index include:

Small businesses experience positive effects from the economic downturn:

• 72%  have found ways to operate more efficiently (up significantly from 66% in June)
• 47% have been led to find new products and services that benefit customers
• 43% have become better teams as hard times force people to work together

Building online presence continues to be key focus for small businesses:

• Company Web sites are a top technology investment in the next two years, with small businesses either adding new features/functionality to their existing Web sites or building one from scratch.
• The ability to showcase their products and services online to attract new customers is second in the hierarchy of technology investments small business owners plan to make in the next two years.
• Social media investments rank third in small business investments to be made in the next two years.

Come On You Know You Are Dying to Read the Rest of It

To download a copy of the Small Business Success Index and also find out how your business scores on the six key dimensions of small business success, visit www.growsmartbusiness.com.