Should I use social media for my small business?
Last Wednesday, Facebook went down for a good part of the day. Instagram and WhatsApp were also affected in the biggest outage ever for Facebook. I was fascinated by the effect this was having and kept tabs on the outage Wednesday afternoon. After all, many websites use Facebook login to access their sites.
In addition, Facebook is used for many life functions, from event information to communication to birthday reminders and more. For advertisers, Facebook’s outage affected their business and ability to reach their intended audience.
Photo on Foter.com
Yes, #FacebookDown was a big deal. It’s a good reminder to all of us that social media is a priviledge and not a right. As a small business owner, you can’t depend on one or even all social media platforms to sustain your business. Technical difficulties and even changes in how people view different social platforms will affect the message you’re trying to get out there.
Privacy is an important concern that shouldn’t be taken lightly for any business. Small business owners should be careful in how they use customer / client information on the web and really should follow the Golden Rule, which says “Do unto others as you would have do unto you.”
Can social media help my business, though?
Despite the pitfalls of social media, I strongly believe that small business owners should use social media in their overall web plan. However, it’s important to carefully evaluate your business goals and to select social platforms that benefit these goals. Don’t feel like you have to have a presence on every social platform. You don’t. Select the ones that meet your goals and do a good job with populating those. You’ll feel better about doing well with a few than not keeping up with many.
As far as advertising on social platforms, there’s a lot that you can do with this. I’d be very strategic about how you spend your advertising dollars, though. You don’t want to rack up a big bill and not generate the leads you’re wanting. With that being said, it’s definitely possible to be effective with advertising on social platforms.