Marketers Helping Small Business in a Time of Need

As a small business owner that had to suspend operations and lay off my entire staff, I can attest that these are trying times--the likes of which I have never seen.  In such a difficult time each and every dollar that a small business owner spends is agonized over, and unfortunately, marketing is often the first casualty as it is by its very essence, a bet placed on the future.  Right now, I'm not willing to bet on the (immediate) future.

Yet even in this gloomy time there are rays of sunshine peaking through the clouds.  Search Engine Land reported on digital marketers and consultants offering their services to small businesses for free.  A couple of the offerings they highlighted:

Lily Ray is serving as a matchmaker for digital marketing professionals and small business owners here - https://lilyray.nyc/seo-and-digital-marketing-support-for-coronavirus/

Footprint Digital's Chris green has a similar setup focused on helping non-digital small businesses get online here - https://helpingsmallbiz.co.uk/.

Joe Youngblood, a marketing consultant established
https://gainlocal.net/small-business-coronavirus-relief-program/

Somewhat surprisingly, demand for these free services seems to be lagging behind supply and willingness to help.   My guess is that small business owners are simply not aware of the free offerings and helping hands standing by.  So if you know anyone that needs any help, please spread the good news!

We're all in this together.  Stay calm and keep marketing my friends.

Full article from Search Engine Land below.
https://searchengineland.com/search-marketers-are-volunteering-services-support-to-help-small-businesses-get-through-covid-19-331722

Small businesses are about to get screwed

Beginning in mid-January 2015, Facebook is warning companies with fan pages that the social network will intensify its efforts to filter out unpaid promotional material in user news feeds that businesses have posted as status updates. This will hurt small businesses and entrepreneurs who currently use Facebook as a tool for free advertising. If these companies don’t pay to promote their posts, then hardly anyone will see the posts. In a recent WSJ article, one entrepreneur Chrisy Bossie estimates that nearly half of her $100K in annual sales comes from free Facebook posts. Well, that’s about to change.

Over 80% of small companies using social media to promote their businesses cited Facebook as their top marketing tool – followed by LinkedIn and Twitter. The top three reasons owners listed for creating a Facebook page were:

1. Customer acquisition
2. Building a network of followers
3. Increasing brand awareness

These stats come from a recent survey of 2,292 small businesses by Webs, a digital services division of Vistaprint.

Facebook’s VP of Small Business, Dan Levy, says that Facebook’s paid-advertising options have become more effective recently. He believes that small businesses should view Facebook as a tool to “help them grow their businesses, not a niche social solution to getting more reach or to make a post go viral.” He says he has “a lot of empathy” for businesses who “are feeling this evolution” in the reduction of organic reach. However, he says that there are many other reasons why small businesses benefit from being on Facebook – given that last month there were over 1 billion (yes, billion) visits to Facebook pages.

Back in the old days, businesses used to own their audience through email or other in-house marketing channels, or through other traditional advertising channels like newspapers and TV. However, the moves of Facebook and the like are attempting a third model: renting an audience. This is where businesses can build a community but never actually own an audience on their platform.

I don’t think many small businesses will be happy about this, but what choice do they really have? They either need to pay to stay in the game, or figure out something else.

Small Business Spending on Social Media

Small businesses, defined as companies with less than 100 employees, are seeing a few noteworthy trends (BIA/Kelsey survey for Q3 2014):

1. 74.5% of small businesses use social media to advertise or promote their businesses - this is up from 71.7% last year.

2. Small businesses spend, on average, 21.4% of their total media budgets on social media - this is up from 18.9% last year.

3. Print and outdoor spend is down to 18.5% from 20.9% last year.

As shown in the chart below, we have now reached a point where small businesses are spending the highest share of their budgets on social.





Facebook pages are most frequently used (55% usage), followed by LinkedIn ads (31% usage). Facebook ads and Tweets/Retweets on Twitter tied for third (20% usage).

What is interesting to note, however, is that less than 1/3 of these small businesses say that social is "Extraordinary" or "Excellent" in terms of ROI. The top 3 channels providing the best ROI were:

1.Online banner or display ads containing video (59.3% of respondents giving "Extraordinary" or "Excellent" rating)
2. Streaming audio advertising (57.7%)
3. Offers distributed on smartphones or tablets (54.0%)

Looking at conversion rates on social, another study by Convertro and AOL Platforms suggests that paid social ads have much higher conversion rates than organic content. This may tell us why small businesses are spending a larger portion of their budgets on social. However, this varies depending on the platform as you can see below:

Sources: http://adage.com/article/digital/small-businesses-spend-social-media/294988/http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Paid-Social-Ads-Convert-More-Customers/1011188