W3 Design Studio

Running a small business is not easy in 2011. Doesn’t matter if its a retail store, a serviced based business, a manufacturing business or anything in between. One of the most under itilised tools in promoting a small business in Australia today is Social Media.

What is Social Media? Social Media is collectively a group of sites where people congregate to interact with friends, family and people with similar interests. Almost everyone has a Facebook account where we probably all waste too much time on. Fact is that a staggering 10.5 million people have an active Facebook account which is not far short of 50% of the nation. Most people log into their account on a daily basis and the stats now show that people spend more time on their Facebook account than surfing the net.

Twitter is not nearly as big in Australia with only 2.5 million people having an account. This is still a large percentage of the population. Other sites such as foursquare and LinkedIn also have large following and there a plethora of smaller sites with growing following. Google have recently released Google+ which has attracted a large following in a short amount of time but looks to be a poor mans Facebook at this stage.

From a business owners viewpoint, how can you take advantage of these huge numbers? Well, to start with you need to have an account with each of the major sites. It’s tedious but if you want to get your message out, it’s necessary. Next, you have to understand your options so that you can maximise your efforts. This can take a while to learn but it’s well worth the effort. The decision on paid advertising should be made as well informed as possible. Some businesses have rushed in without really understanding the medium, burned a fair amount of their advertising budgets and then leave thinking that Social Media is a myth. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Social Media, when used properly, can allow a newcomer in almost any market to compete with established brands and in some cases outshine their more illustrious competitors. That is a huge statement but one that is absolutely true. You would be shocked to know that the larger competitors in most industries don’t own this space. This allows smaller, more focused businesses to effectively sneak in under the guard of the big guys and get their slice of the action.

This wont last forever. The big guys are waking up to the fact that Social Media is here to stay and if they don’t start competing in this space they will get left behind. In the retail sector a good example of this is Harvey Norman. Run by a very smart guy in Gerry Harvey, he resisted the online space despite acknowledging that he was taking a hammering from online sites. His competition did not have the huge overhead of his franchisees and could reach consumers via the net and Social Media for a fraction of the cost he could through main stream media. As a result, their stores were faced with declining sales. Gerry cried hard done by but then he did something very interesting. He opened an online grocery and food business claiming that if couldn’t beat them, he’d join them. Next, he announced he was opening an online version of Harvey Norman after striking a deal with his franchisees. The point is, he was stubborn but was forced to change his views as the market changed.

If you have a small business and want to own the Social Media space for your product or service, the timing could not be better.