Commentary

Small Business Not Into Social Networks For Leads

by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer, November 2, 2009

According to a new Citibank / GfK Roper survey of 500 small business executives across the United States, 76% have not found social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to be helpful in generating business leads or for expanding their business during the last year, while 86% say they have not used social networking sites to get business advice or information.

The survey found that general search engine sites such as Google and Yahoo! trump small business-focused sites and the WSJ.com as destinations for small business owners to seek business advice or information. 61% of respondents say they rely on these search engine sites.

Lead Generation by Social Networks (% of Respondents, August 2009)
*Small Business Execs Who Say*	*% of Execs Responding*
Social networks are:
Very helpful	3%
Somewhat helpful	9
Not very helpful	13
Not at all helpful	63
Don't know/na	11
Source: Citibank omnibus poll by Gfk Roper, October 2009

Maria Veltre, Executive Vice President of Citi's Small Business Segment, concludes "... small business owners are still feeling their way into social media... many... may not have the manpower or the time required take advantage of them."

Additional responses found that 42% of small business owners and managers reported that in the past year they have made greater use of their company's website to generate business leads and sales. Among companies with 20 to 99 employees the percentage rises, with 57% saying they have made greater use of their website. 28% of survey respondents are also using email marketing and 25% are using online advertising to generate business leads and sales.

More information from Citibank may be found here.

lead generation, research, social networks

11 comments about "Small Business Not Into Social Networks For Leads".

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Aaron Irizarry, November 2, 2009 at 12:24 p.m.
Very Interesting... In my experience I have see the exact opposite, many small businesses (and med to large businesses) have been looking for new ways to extend their brand, and open up new opportunities.
They are starting to realize that whether they understand or even like social media, it is becoming a vital tool, in online marketing, and brand recognition.
Maybe if more businesses read the case studies on just twitter alone... they could see how they could benefit from the use of social media
http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/case_dell
thanks for the information.
~ Aaron I
Reply

Howie Goldfarb from Blue Star Strategic Marketing, November 2, 2009 at 12:52 p.m.

I am not surprised with the data. You would do better with local specific advertising and a website if you sell to consumers. And direct sales people for B2B. Social Networks can be searched for key words or locations but currently you would need to contact people one at a time. I personally do not search Facebook or Twitter for information on local businesses. And while I have a company twitter account it is used more for news/commentary than promoting the business. If I google/bing a local business I would much rather my website come up at the top of the list before any social network page. Or Yelp or CitySearch if I know my business has many positive reviews. If I didn't have a website then a Myspace or Facebook page is a free way of promoting/giving a presence. Just my thoughts.

Gerard Mclean from Rivershark, Inc., November 2, 2009 at 1:13 p.m.

This tells me that social media is doing a terrible job MARKETING social media. When used correctly, these tool can drive results to Google and Yahoo! which is where small biz says leads take place. Most social media experts are too absorbed in the "conversation" and the "engagement" blah, blah, blah that it turns off small biz, who HAVE to make every effort turn a sale. Just because you can't see social media doing its thing doesn't mean it isn't. A good social media "expert" will understand that and know how to sell it to small biz.

Randy Kirk from Randy Kirk & Associates, November 2, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.

I have begun to use Twitter, but do not have any huge expectation that it will be a barn burner for my accounts. We are finding great success with YouTube, constant contact, blogs, and localizing of SEO for websites. Facebook and Linked so far not worth the time.

Alex Hawkinson from Mural Ventures, November 2, 2009 at 9:30 p.m.

Wow. I've got a lot to say on this topic. Apologies in advance for all the links but I think that supporting data will help create understanding here.

When this Citibank survey data was published 3 weeks ago I wasn't alone in seeing a lot of issues with it. Here's my post at that time where I outline some of the thinking about it along with links to other commentary from folks like RWW - http://bit.ly/42DRWz.

At the core, I think it's still just early days in terms of small business social media adoption. 40+% of small businesses in the U.S. don't even have a web site (and the number of those that have them that are inactive is also very high), but we don't say that the web doesn't matter.

Fundamentally, social media growth is exploding amongst consumers. Facebook is now 1 in 4 U.S. pageviews (http://bit.ly/28iVda). Consumers talk about companies as they use social media (http://bit.ly/4zJ0Xe) and those conversations influence buying behaviors (http://bit.ly/MM6ZT).

Consumers expect businesses to be present and interactive with them in those environments and the businesses that embrace it as an opportunity to deliver great customer engagement and service will benefit (http://bit.ly/nf0or).

We've got about 400K small businesses running on our platform, and I will say that they also shouldn't over emphasize social media to the detriment of other paths for being found. Ultimately, small businesses need a strategy that gets them discovered in both search and social discovery (http://bit.ly/1LLhUo) and which helps them to go beyond discover to listening and serving their customers (http://bit.ly/44evxJ).

As I said, it's early days, but the Citibank survey hardly tells the story.

Douglas Madaras, November 3, 2009 at 2:28 a.m.

Being a bit of a novice with a my own take on market potential and analysis, I see social media as prime opportunity for new markets and approach. Innovation is key to tapping into the 'unique' aspects of the individuals who venture into social media...social media provides an extension of their more personal traits, which odds are, are not receptive to corporate needling into their private spaces. My 2.5 cents...

Allen Maccannell from SenderOK, November 3, 2009 at 2:32 a.m.

And they say there is a recession going on. My observation on Twitter is that there are very few there who seem to be looking for a job because their ability to "get" Twitter automatically makes them quite employable even in a lengthy financial crisis. Like the ability to use a word processor was in the early 90s, this ability will soon be a minimum wage thing but that will only further marginalize those who seek employment but can't do this.

Young people have a huge opportunity here just like young people had the chance to quickly climb a career ladder when WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 were on the market.

Nick Stamoulis, November 3, 2009 at 8:40 a.m.

Great survey and information. It is amazing to me that although the social networking and social media marketing industries are still very hot, that most businesses still don't utilize and don't see the value in social media.

In my opionion search engine marketing (SEO, PPC and opt-in email marketing) are still the most powerful and effective forms of online marketing for all businesses.

Also, I just referenced this data and post on my SEO blog:
http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com/2009/11/03/bottom-line/

Kamau Jackson, November 3, 2009 at 1:23 p.m.

I think the Dell tweet study is a classic example of a misplaced "model". Nothing personal Aaron, but this is the 100th time I've heard it. A $500 billion company makes 1 million on twitter while it loses 800 mil (during the same period) on it's core business processes. This gets closer to how small businesses conceptualize their own dilemmas.

Some thought has to be given to opportunity costs before any foray into unfamiliar marketing territory. It's not social media, but rather social media evangelists who aren't conveying the value in hard dollars. For a lot of small businesses, reputation management just isn't "priority one".

Social media "in an hour a day" translates into almost 2 full business months a year. For a small business to dedicate this much investment-- the returns need to be stated more clearly.

Dell might have the flexibility to let a C-level exec spend his time like that. Most small businesses do not.

Tish Grier from Tish Grier & Associates, November 3, 2009 at 4:16 p.m.

I recently used these stats in a presentation I did locally for women business owners. This was the 4th presentation on "what is social media" for small businesses that I've done in as many years. All the big business examples (Dell, Rubbermaid, Zappos, etc.) simply don't translate into the lives of small business owners. Often these are folks who just don't understand what social media is in the general sense, let alone apply it to their businesses.

Even then, they hear "the tools are free! and they're easy to use!" but nobody tells them that there is indeed a level of expertise to using them effectively. So, many give up shortly after they get started.

Using lots of analogies ("Twitter is like a huge cocktail party!") gets them to literally see what these things are, beyond the rhetoric they're getting from the mainstream and tech press. Once I talk to them on that level, then talk to them in case studies (my own with small biz's) then they begin to get it. Still, it's a really tough thing to get small biz's to understand and then to commit to using it. Takes lots of coaching!

Tish Grier from Tish Grier & Associates, November 3, 2009 at 9:26 p.m.

one correction: that should be 4th presentation in as many months. hmmm...I must be living more in Internet years than I thought ;-)