Make a Resolution to Get Noticed!

Just lately I can't seem to open my in-box without finding something new about social media and its usefulness and importance to SMEs - and if social media isn't on the menu that day, articles about web awareness and internet technology are nearly always there instead.

I'm not surprised. The internet offers huge opportunities for any business to sell its products or services, promote itself, raise its profile and stand out from the crowd, and any number of people have a vested interest in making sure that as many unconverted or unconvinced people as possible know that. What does surprise me, though, is that many SMEs don't seem to be taking advantage of powerful promotional tools that can very cheap or cost nothing but time.

I began to think about that initially last October, when the Forum of Private business published the results of a referendum themed around electronic technology and smaller firms. 5,800 business owners took part, and the results astonished me.

Only 58% of the people polled used social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter - and only 7% of those people thought them very useful. 19% of of people polled did not have a website and a fifth only communicated with customers and suppliers through 'traditional' means.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of small businesses operating in the UK, and I couldn't help wondering whether those percentages would hold true overall, or whether - as I suspect would be the case - a country-wide referendum would paint an even less technologically optimistic picture.

I also began to wonder why so many people were having such poor experiences with social media - or were avoiding experiencing it at all - and why so many people were not bothering to get a website, which has to be the cheapest and most efficient form of paid advertising ever invented.

Having asked around, I found that people were worried about taking on a project that they perceived as being difficult and potentially expensive - which is a pity, because putting together a successful web presence for any small business is a relatively easy and inexpensive project if you are prepared to spend some time doing things yourself. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be explaining how I did it, and how much it cost me to do it. In the meantime:

Happy New Year!