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Matt Triest

Professor Foster

Academic Writing Process

17 December 2013

A change to save your business

Small businesses are the heart and soul of the U.S. economy. They

make up over 99% of businesses in the US (Ritholtz, 2012). What if I told you

50% of those businesses will fail in less than 5 years (Ritholtz, 2012)? There

are many reasons why they fail including lack of experience, poor location

and low sales. I have a solution for businesses that want to survive this

crunch. If small businesses actively use social media they can find, engage,

and retain more customers. Small businesses should regularly use social

media platforms to promote their business.

The history of social media is fascinating and dynamic, having changed

dramatically throughout the years. It all started in 1978 when Ward

Christensen and Randy Suess invented a computerized bulletin board

system. The purpose of the site was to inform friends of events, make

announcements, and share information. In 1997, AOL announced their new

product, AOL Instant Messenger. In 2002, AOL reached a record 34 Million

members, the same year that MySpace launched (Bennett, 2012). In 2003,

Facebook was launched by Mark Zuckerberg out of his dorm room at

Harvard. Facebook received numerous offers from companies looking to buy

them, with offers coming from Viacom, Yahoo and Google (Bennett, 2012).
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Twitter was formed in 2006 and now delivers over 33 billion tweets each day

(Bennett, 2012). Other social media platforms like Tumblr, Youtube,

Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Vine and Instagram were born throughout the

years. These companies all had one goal in mind when starting, they wanted

to help people and businesses connect and stay connected.

Social media networks give people the ability to talk real time online.

50 years ago if you said that you would be able to type characters to

someone in Hawaii while in Florida instantly, they would say that there would

be no way for this to happen! There are thousands of businesses out there

that have no presence on social media networks. They are missing out of a

huge market of potential customers. Over 50% of all Americans currently

have a personal social media site (Brennan, 2010). The growth of social

media over the past few years is outstanding. As of 2013 Facebook had 1.15

Billion users, Twitter had 500 Million users, and Instagram had 130 Million

users (Bernstein, 2013). Businesses can easily create an account on those

networks for free and reach those million or billions of users. To set up

accounts on social media networks only takes a few minutes.

The most popular, and one of the most powerful social networks by far

is Facebook. It is the perfect social media platform for small businesses to

start out on. It is user friendly, simple to use and you will reach the most

amount of people. Twitter is another good social network to use to get

information out. It is quick to use and you can gain new followers easily by

using hashtags so that users can find you. The hashtag allows followers to
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easily find businesses on Twitter. You can involve your customers in

conversation by using the @replies and mentions feature. Instagram is a

good photo and video sharing platform that helps showcase what your

company is all about. Sharing high quality photos can help you gain a

following.

When small businesses use social media, using photos in their posts is

a smart idea. Sharing photos helps engage customers and draw them in. A

photo stands out a lot better than text, when posted on social networking

sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Facebook allows customers to comment

and like photos. If you get a comment on a social network, as a business

owner, you should respond to the customer. Never let a comment go un-

responded to or the customer could leave. Photos are 53% more likely to get

likes and 104% more likely to get comments than a text post (Cunningham,

2013). It makes sense, that a photo peeks your interest a lot better than text

on a page.

Using social media is not only helpful in reaching your existing

customer base; you can also reach new potential customers. Those new

customers that find you on a social network could turn into paying clients.

74% of businesses that used social media in their business said that it has

generated more business for them (Maul, 2010). You have thousands of

potential customers waiting to find you. Consumers today are more

discerning and value-conscious than ever before[they] become fans of

favorite brands on Facebook, show off purchases on YouTube, and provide

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accolades or vent complaints to friends and the masses on Twitter

(Brennan, 2010). Consumers are constantly on social media sharing

interesting products or stories about experiences at a local businesses. There

are people out there that have blogs with thousands of follows. Having a

presence on social media will help increase your visibility to millions of

people. It can also provide a competitive advantage over your competitors. It

can help boost your search rankings and help you build business partners

and connections. Using social media properly, your search rankings on

search engines will improve dramatically. This will improve your presence on

the World Wide Web. Also, using social media will help you with building

connections. I have used social media in my businesses, Kids Creative Corner

and On the Cape, to help me connect with other businesses and

professionals. I was able to find my screen printer through the use of social

media. If they were not on social media I may have not of found them.

There are many businesses that are using social media to their highest

advantage. Business owners that are using social media are seeing a positive

impact on their business. Franktuary is a small business located in Pittsburgh

that uses social media effectively. They engage their audience on social

media by posting rich content. They post everything from their

#TuesdayTrivia series that they offer each week, high quality photos or just

answering customers questions (Debaise 2013). They also post photos of

behind the scene action. Customers like to see what happens behind the

scenes in the company. This shows how the owner works hard in his or her
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small business. Posting photos of behind the scene action is something I do

in my business, including photos of my deliveries and photos of the making

of my products. Customers seem to really like these photos.

I have found that there are some ways that small businesses are

underutilizing the potential offered by social media. Often small businesses

dont ask their customers for their ideas regarding your business. If you

owned a retail clothing store and found a new brand at a trade show, the

retailer could post a photo of the product and ask their followers what they

think of the product. The best way to find out if a product will sell and be

popular is to ask your customers through social media. I also found that not

many businesses are showing who their customers are on social media

pages. Posting photos of your customers will help your future customers

envision themselves shopping in your happy store environment. If you owned

a retail clothing store you could post photos of your happy customers making

purchases at your shop. A customer could hold up or wear their new knitted

hat that they just bought with a smile on their face and take a photo and

posit it. A user could see this on a social media platform such as Instagram

and come in the next day and buy one for herself and a friend. This customer

could turn into a repeat customer, which could increase your sales.

It is shown that small businesses can benefit from the use of social

media. What if 100% of small businesses used social media? Would the

failure rate still be 50% after five years?

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Works Cited

Bennett, Shea. "The History of Social Media." Media Bistro. Media Bistro, 17 Feb. 2012. Web.

15 Dec. 2013. <http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-history_b18776>.

Bernstein, Jonathan, and Digital Insights. "Social Media in 2013: By the Numbers." Social

Media Today. Social Media Today, 6 Nov. 2013. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.

<http://socialmediatoday.com/jonathan-bernstein/1894441/social-media-stats-facts-

2013>.

Brennan, Bernie, and Lori Schafer. Branded! How Retailers Engage Consumers with Social

Media and Mobility. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Print.

Cooper, Belle Beth. "7 Powerful Facebook Statistics you should know for a more engaging

Facebook Page." Buffer. Buffer, 23 July 2013. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.

<http://blog.bufferapp.com/7-facebook-stats-you-should-know-for-a-more-engaging-

page>.

Cunningham, Tasha. "Major changes coming to a social media network near you in 2014."

Miami Herald [Miami] 9 Dec. 2013: n. pag. Miami Herald. Web. 15 Dec. 2013.

<http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/12/08/3805852/major-changes-coming-to-a-

social.html>.

Debaise, Colleen. "6 Small Businesses That Are Doing Social Media Right." Entrepreneur.

Entrepreneur Media, 22 July 2013. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.

<http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/227392#>.

Maul, Kimberly. "Small Businesses Make Big Progress with Social Media." PR Week (US) 1

June 2010: 1-2. Print.

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Ritholtz, Barry. "Small Business Success/Failure Rates." The Big Picture. Ginormous Content, 4

Jan. 2012. Web. 12 Dec. 2013. <http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/01/small-business-

successfailure-rates/>.