SMEs and Social Media - Vital or Useless?

The Forum of Private Business has recently published the results of a referendum themed around electronic technology and social media.

The results are very interesting: 52% of the members polled used social media like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter - but only 7% described it as 'very useful' for their businesses. Moreover, over half of the 52% of members polled expressed serious doubts about the value of popular networking sites - and 6% went so far as to describe them as 'useless'.

The problem is, of course, that whilst electronic technology and social media can potentially be enormously valuable marketing tools, you only get out what you put in - and what you need to put in is a lot of time.

• Websites, for example, are wonderful things, and I tend to believe that every business should have one - but they are never really finished: they need to be updated regularly.
• It takes time to build a profile on LinkedIn - or any other social networking site - and the work there is never really finished either, because it's essential to advertise yourself and your business by updating your profile and letting people know 'what you are doing now' as frequently as possible.
• People who Tweet every five minutes are an awful nuisance, but you can learn a lot from people who Tweet responsibly - and people can learn a lot from you if you do likewise.

The Forum didn't include 'blogging' in its referendum, but blogs are a excellent marketing tool, too - and they cost nothing.

The use of electronic technology and social media can give any company - however small - a very high profile and pull in a lot of business, so it's worth taking the time to learn how to use them - and then taking the time to use what you have learned side by side with traditional trading methods.