As TV matured, so did the advertising. As marketers learned the power of the visual medium they created ads to engage emotions, some were funny, others were sweet or sentimental and some serious and thought provoking. While the average viewer is more jaded today, we can still be moved to laughter, tears or action with the right ad. (In most cases, we will, however, be watching it on YouTube).

We design has gone through the same process, from an age of brochure sites, we moved to flash and animated graphics to excite the visitor, and finally to simple, mobile friendly sites, which go where our customers are, with interactive features to create marketing conversations with visitors.

And now, we see social media going through the same phases. From causal conversations to broadcast of sales messages, savvy marketers are learning to find that balance between conversation, engagement and a bit of sales thrown in. As the medium matures, more and more small business owners are taking it more seriously as part of their marketing mix.

Is that wishful thinking or are there really changes afoot? We want to know, so once again we are conducting a small business social media survey and comparing the results to past years.   We hope to have a lot more results, but many of the comments we have seen so far clearly reflect this maturing attitude.

From the Survey:

I used to stress about blogging on a schedule and worry that comments counts were not very high.  I have now relaxed and blog when I have a topic of interest and integrate my posts in live in person workshops and trainings.  Clients love links to topics of interest and I can see they have visited – even if they don’t leave a comment.

 

Spending more time on fewer mediums.  Althought I am always looking for the next new platform, when it comes, we will give up one of the old ones.

 

I  have been working to create a simple and focused strategy that is more interactive with potential clients.

 

What about you?  Have you changed your approach to this maturing medium?  Are you seeing results?   We would love to add your experiences to our social media survey.  it will take just a few minutes ( It is only 20 questions).  Then look for more results here later this spring.

Owners are taking charge

From their responses, it was obvious owners are taking social media seriously as more than 65% indicated they are actively involved in creating content.    This percentage was fairly constant among different groups of small business owners, until we look at companies with more than then 25 employees.

Even though their participation starts to fall off, 50% of the owners of these larger companies are still involved.  It is obvious, however, these executives are delegating more of the responsibility for social media content creation to others.

Who owns social media content creation

While many companies are diving into social media, their programs fall short because they don’t clearly define roles.  They fail to decide who will create content, how often and about what.

I was disappointed to see more than ½ the companies in the study are not leveraging the customers and prospects as content generators.

From testimonials and check-ins, to FAQs and discussions, companies are missing a tremendous opportunity by not actively engaging these constituencies.

 Not the Intern

While it varies by company there are strong indications social media is being taken more seriously in 2011.  For example: Consider the role of interns.  In our 2010 Facebook study, more than 80% of businesses which had interns on staff indicated the intern was involved in social media content creation.

To us, this pointed to the fact companies were not really taking the tools seriously.  If they had, they would not rely on the least experienced member of their team to lead the content development.  In this year’s study, only 30% of companies with interns indicated they were involved in content creation.

Looking for Help

While many business owners believe social media is a do it yourself type of activity, there is a growing interest in hiring marketing and social media firms to support their efforts.  Overall, about 10% of the companies in the study indicated an outside firm was actively engaged in the company’s social media program.   While I expected large firms to look outside for help, a significant number of companies in the 6-10 person range were also looking to external resources.

Surprising, companies with 11 – 24 employees were less likely to use an outside firm.  Why?  We assume at this size, companies have someone on staff with time to dedicate to social media activities.  As expected, the largest the companies are more likely to also have a dedicated social media employee.   The comments also show the conflict between the do-it-yourself and hire-a-pro camps.

What do business owners say about getting help with social media?

• Hire someone to set up the accounts and teach you how to manage them effectively. It is difficult to keep up with them all in a timely fashion.
• Have a professorial do your Social Media.  You hire a CPA because you can’t do accounting, hire a social media professional.
• These days everyone is a” social media expert” you know as much as they do.
• Hire someone who can educate you, get social media tools up and running that align with your brand.
• Embrace social media but be leery of social media “experts” and consultants.

This survey was conducted entirely online from May 1 – July 1, 2011. As you may know, Google Plus launched in late June, and was not included as a choice in the study. Links to the survey were sent via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and email. It was also publicized on www.roundpeg.biz  and www.MarketingTechBlog.com. We received 243 responses from small business owners of companies with less than 50 employees.

We wanted to know to understand what small business owners were thinking and doing with social media.  We set out to discover if social media is it the savior of small business or a giant waste of time?  

The data seems to indicate social media is having a positive impact on the lead generation.  Almost 70% of business owners indicated they generate leads from social media.  But is it adding to the bottom line?

More than half the businesses in this year’s study indicated social media was connected to at least 6% of their sales, so the payoff is clearly there

As we reviewed the comments it is clear business owners are not in agreement as to the potential of social media.  Here is what business owners told us when we asked if Social Media: Solid business practice or a waste of time?

• If you are not wowing your customers or potential customers with social media, your competition is.
• Social media is just a PIECE of the marketing puzzle.  If you don’t have a plan and good content, social media won’t save your business.
• Social media generates poor ROI when ‘time’ is the investment.
• In terms of target-marketing accuracy, it is only slightly better than dropping business cards from an airplane.
• Be cautious about spending an inordinate amount of time on Twitter and Facebook. They can be time eaters.
• You don’t have to spend a lot of time to reach this audience.
• Don’t get caught up in the hype. Social Media isn’t some magical savior for your business.  It’s only free if your time is worth nothing and personally that is my most expensive asset.
• Putting time and attention into SM is totally worth it.

Our preliminary results from our social media survey seem to indicate business owners, both men and women are spending more time on social media daily.  ( Men spending even more then women).  This is a dramatic shift from just one year ago when we did our first study.

The red and brown lines reflect the results from our 2010 study.  As you can see, about half of all the men and women responding to our survy said they spent less than 30 minutes a day on social media.  This year, the blue and teal lines clearly indicate a shift to more time spent on social networks.  With almost 50% of the men reporting they spend more than one hour a day

While interesting, the real question: Is it working? The data seems to indicate that it is .  While more than half the business owners in this year’s study are still indicating social media accounts for less than 5% of their total sales, there are clearly companies experiencing some success.

What are they doing to generate sales?  You will have to wait for the rest of the data to be compiled to find out.

And in the meantime, if you haven’t had a chance to participate, now is a great time, the survey will only take a few minutes, and the more respondents the more interesting the results.  If you complete the survey, I will send you a copy of the new white paper when it is published.

Take the Survey Now

And if you would like a copy of the white papers from last year’s study, you can find it here:

A lot has changed in the last year.  My perception is that more businesses then ever are engaged in social media, or at least testing the waters.  It that is the case, it seems like a good time to revisit the topic with another study.

Here were some of the 2010 Small Business Social Media Study Results:

• If small business owners are using social media, they are committing time to the process, with 64% indicating they are spending more than 30 minutes a day on social media. So where are they hanging out? Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter were all quite common, with 3/4 of the respondents saying they have profiles on all three. Most common – Profiles on LinkedIn just barely edged out profiles on Facebook with Twitter close behind.
• When asked which was their primary network, I wasn’t surprised to see Facebook top the charts. Almost half of the respondents said Facebook was their primary network. The simple user interface, makes it easy to transition back and forth from business to personal. And in the real world small business owners do that on a regular basis

It will only take a few minutes to complete the survey.  We will publish some of the results here as the responses start to come in!

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The results are starting to come in, and one of the most noticeable differences is the amount of time small business owners are spending on social media.  A year ago the vast majority of respondents were spending less than one hour a day.  This year there is a clear shift toward more time on social media.  Is it paying off?   Watch for more updates as the results continue to trickle in.

• Have a brand new job
• Own a piece of business
• See that crazy idea you have kicked around become a reality

For the members of Team GrabaChat that is definitely true.   Their award winning product is a live chat application, which you can learn more about here: Grabachat .  They are already starting to generate some buzz and I expect we will be hearing more about them, and the other companies launched this weekend

We hope to run at least one more event this year. The only question is if you will be ready for a life changing experience?

As you would expect, many of the presentations were about the technology.  However, some of the most interesting to me where the companies which spent more time talking about the community impact of their innovation.  One which I think  has the ability to positively impact the Central Indiana business community is an application developed by  MIBOR.  Yes, you are reading that right, MIBOR ( the Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors).

So what has MIBOR done which earned them a seat at the technology table?  It is their new application TheStatsHouse.org.  Developed in  collaboration with the Indiana Business Research Center, MIBOR has compiled an interactive database of timely data on central Indiana’s housing indicators.  This is a powerful tool for local economic development groups trying to attract the attention of site selection teams and convince companies that moving to Indianapolis makes sense.

Bringing census, housing, and economic data to the fingertips of individuals considering a move to Indianapolis or a recruiter trying to lure the very best workers to our community this tool builds a compelling story.   The standard and custom report data is available in PDF, Word and Excel formal, so users can build their own charts and graphs as well.

In addition to the typical census data the site includes comparisons of the cost of living, property tax, and value of dollar to cities across the country.   One of my favorite features is the location profile.  Typing in a specific address, you can dive into the demographic makeup of the community in a 2, 5, 10 or 20 mile radius.  The work profile will tell you how many businesses, and what types of businesses are in the surrounding community.

While I love the economic development applications of the tool, there are some interesting marketing applications I can think of too.

This year’s MIira finalists are pushing technology and media in so many different directions.   I hope you will be on hand to congratulate the winners in May, and see first hand how exciting our tech community is.

And because of that focus, we have launched a series of studies to understand how small businesses ( 1 – 25 employees) used social media. While there have been a number of surveys looking at how Fortune 500 firms are entering the world of social media there was little content about smaller firms. We wanted to know if smaller firms were leading or lagging behind their larger counterparts in regards to usage of social media.

While we predicted some of the results, other findings surprised us. We compiled the preliminary results into a white paper in August, (download here http://wp.me/pfpna-1ZO) and followed up with a closer look at Facebook.

We had a great response and lots of interesting insight into how small businesses are experimenting with, and using Facebook to grown their businesses. Now, we’ve compiled all of the results into one in-depth white paper.

Fill out the form below to download your FREE copy.

And we are kicking off the twitter study, so be sure to share your thoughts here.
It takes a few minutes for the PDF to load after you hit the submit button, so please be patient.
Online Form – Facebook White Paper – COPY

Douglas Karr on Judging at StartUp Weekend

Check out the updates in the video. And if you are curious enough about how all this is going to turn out, and what the judges ( including Doug Karr) think about the business ideas, join us for networking and final presentations on Sunday night: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/851407583

This small team, will in turn provide support for hundreds of StartUp Weekend events around the world.   How?   That was what the summit in Kansas City this weekend was about.   The group was a mix of start up weekend junkies and rookies, each of whom had committed to be an event organizer or curator of the startup digest in their community.

As a local organizer, I had a chance to exchange ideas with my counterparts from places like Singapore, Prague, Spain,  Japan, Canada, and Austraila.  Despite differences in age and culture, the unifying theme was clearly a common passion for expanding the world wide entrepreneurial community.  We each believe that is where true job creation will be in the years to come.

One of the most amazing stories was the recap of the first Israel/Palestinian joint StartUp Weekend.  Despite a daunting list of obstacles and serious security concerns more than 100 Israelis and 30 Palestinians spent 54 hours together.  The conversations were not about politics, they were about technology.

With the new funding from the Kauffman Foundation, StartUp Weekend can expand it’s mission of bringing Experiential Eduction to Entrepreneurs.  While real businesses do emerge from the weekend, Start Up Weekend is not a StartUp Factory, it is an Entrepreneur Factory.  And we need more entrepreneurs.

I am excited about the possibilities world wide and I am looking forward to going back to Kansas City a year from now, to reconnect with friend, and meet hundreds of others, as the event grows from 100 to 1,000 .  Until then, I am focused on StartUp here in Indiana.  Want to learn more?  Go to: http://www.startupweekend.org and http://www.indianapolis.startupweekend.org

We are going to have a chance to put some of these ideas into practice at our own StartUp Weekend on November 12-14. Register now.

Previous events here in Indy have brought together individuals ranging in age from 17 – 70 with skills across disciplines from developers and designers to marketing, finance and business development. Several companies have emerged, and we expect more of the same later this fall.

Once again, the Purdue Research Park has agreed to host the event, and the planning committee is lining up everything from the food and logistics to program elements, judges and sponsors. You can see a preliminary schedule online.

If you have never been to one of these events, it is an amazing high energy experience, which is about building a foundation for an entrepreneurial ecosystem that will expand and grow after the weekend. I know you are already involved in helping to build this ecosystem, so I hope you will consider becoming a part of Start Up Weekend.

So how can you help? Any of the following would be great:

• Promote the event to your employees, customers, associates
• Register for the Indianapolis StartUp Weekend
• Become a Startup Weekend Sponsor
• Become a mentor or judge : Call me for details at 317.569.1396
• Call me and suggest something else!

Hope to see you at the event!