Social Media Strategies in Small Businesses

A research project funded by NEMODE and Digital Economy Research Council

Introduction / Research Methods

 

• A NEMODE (New Economic Models in the Digital Economy) funded project to investigate use of social media in small businesses.
• Previous research highlighted the need for further investigation into the strategies used by small businesses
• Examined survey data from 271 SME businesses in the West Midlands to generate interview questions. (<50 staff, range of sectors)
• 6 semi-structured interviews with small businesses in the North West of England - <50 staff, range of sectors
• Interviews on 4 subject areas – use of social media, strategies, champions of social media, impacts

 

Outcomes - Use of Social Media

“We’re on social media every day.  Our workload dictates how often but we manage it every day looking for content, try to make a daily update, at least one update per day.” (Business 2)

• Twitter was the most widely used form of social media
• All the businesses had a strategy of at least daily social media updates
• Used for a variety of purposes outside of sales and marketing e.g networking, recruitment, service updates
• Pinterest, Tumblr – photos to promote business
• Google+ - something new, search engine optimization (SEO)
• Most staff in business did not have access to social media for business purposes

 

Outcomes - Social Media Strategy

“…one thing that’s important is that we are trying to promote things that give a benefit back to the reader, so not kind of shouting about ourselves but giving them something back and giving them something interesting to look at.” (Business 1)

• Quality of social media posts – important to offer free knowledge/expertise to customers, offer opinions
• Two-way dialogue between business and clients is important
• Advertising on social media was viewed with suspicion
• Time investment required – but only 1 business was able to appoint a full-time member of staff for social media duties
• In half of businesses the marketing manager was social media manager
• Experiment with social media

 

Outcomes - Champions of Social Media

“I’m certainly like the formal champion in work, but that kind of comes out of the fact, that informally, I use social media anyway. “ (Business 3)

• In half of the businesses the marketing manager considered themselves a social media champion
• One business made use of another member of staff as an informal champion
• Other methods of learning about social media – hiring a consultant, formal training courses, reading reports

 

Outcomes - Impacts of Social Media

“We measure some of that engagement in Google analytics and we also use sprout to give us reports on engagement, interaction, retweets etc.  That’s how we measure and report on our social media.” (Business 2)

“In fairness it’s very difficult because someone can see us through social media but then come to our website directly because they know us.” (Business 6)

• Most businesses made use of analytics tools to track whether social media resulted in conversions to customers
• Many businesses found it difficult to monitor how social media interactions converted to value for the business

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more information on the research, please contact Jackie Carter on .)