Altyrian View

More and more small businesses are using social media to promote their companies:  A report by Palore found that 58.2 percent of small businesses are on Facebook or Twitter.  However, the same report showed that only 22 percent were on both social media sites. This raises an important question – just how engaged and active the businesses are on the sites?

It’s not enough just to have a Facebook or Twitter page,  you have to consistently and creatively use the tools in front of you. Although the numbers of users are steadily increasing, engagement remains limited: Those companies that use social media sites aren’t really using them. Only around 17 percent of businesses have more than 1000 likes or followers, and according to this report, that means they aren’t engaged.

As Businessweek writes, social media is worth your time.  Make sure you stay in the game.

Recently, a client said something that I just haven’t been able to get out of my head. We were in the middle of a budget discussion (lots of those going on these days) when she said “You know, we can’t outspend the competition, so we just have to outsmart them.” Our conversation went back to the budget and that was that.

Well, no, I guess that wasn”t entirely that, because the more I think about what she said, the more fundamental truth I see in it. Especially for us marketing strategists who understand that the number of dollars we spend on marketing and advertising isn’t nearly as important as how we actually spend those dollars.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that a company should spend nothing on marketing – that would be stupid as well as ineffective. Instead, it means that it”s better to spend smarter, to get more for every dollar of the marketing budget and to do those things that will generate the highest results. It means to focus our targeting, to sharpen our message, to explore and utilize new approaches for delivering our message. At times, it might also mean rethinking and changing our brand image to bring it more in line with our market. And it certainly always means to keep our focus on constantly improving the customer’s experience with the company and the product.

It also points to a big reason for strategy in the first place - the competition. They’re out there spending money to take away your customers and sometimes they have more money to spend. Regardless of budget constraints, you can – and you should – do whatever it takes to outsmart them at every turn.