Somewhat disappointed to hear that research from Pagemodo has found that only half of small business are using Facebook to engage with their existing and potential customers. Despite a desire among some to have a Facebook presence, the top reasons given for not having a business page are:
– lack of time to create a page
– poor understanding of Facebook’s business benefits
– belief that their customers aren’t on Facebook
– lack of knowledge about how to get a Facebook page
– insufficient awareness of Facebook in general
So what do the other half of small businesses that are on Facebook use it for? Four in five share information about their business via this platform, three in five share video or picture content, and around half enter into conversations with customers. Customer support activity is undertaken by just over a quarter, and over a fifth use Facebook for competitions and giveaways (NB: Facebook’s competition regulations are pretty strict; woe betide the business that falls foul of these).
So why use it at all? Almost half of small businesses report increased traffic to their website as a result of their Facebook activity and a similar proportion say that a proportion of the traffic is converted into new customers. Indeed, two in five now say that their Facebook page generates more traffic than their business website.
Facebook is certainly trending for small businesses, with three-quarters of small business Facebook users planning to increase the amount of their Facebook activity in the next six months, and three in five of those without a business page planning to get one in the next twelve months.
Are you too busy to set up your business on Facebook? Not enough time to make regular posts and create conversations with your customers? Business page wrongly set up as a personal profile? You could be missing out on valuable business – email me karen@karenwisdom.co.uk to find out how I can support you.
Do take a moment to visit my Facebook business page www.facebook.com/wisdomresearchandmarketing and to ‘like’ it if you do.
