The Value of Small Business Blogging

By: Tim Fasano

Social media is all the rage these days for marketing your business to customers, old and new. But are all social media platforms created equal? According to a recent study by MarketingSherpa, a noted source for case studies, news and trends in the world of marketing, the answer is no.

MarketingSherpa polled their membership of leading marketers, asking which social media platforms they found most effective for reaching their goals. Marketing goals vary depending upon the industry – some marketers may goal themselves based on how many sales their company made. Others may look at downloads of free trials or a whitepaper. Regardless of their set goal, a very impressive 32% of marketers said that their blog was “very effective” for achieving their marketing objectives. This puts blogs way ahead of other social media outlets and just above LinkedIn and YouTube (or other video sharing platforms), which only 23% of marketers found to be very effective. Despite their huge user bases, Facebook and Twitter were only deemed very effective by 16% and 13% of marketers, respectively.

What can we glean from these results? First and foremost, quality of leads trumps quantity. Yes, Facebook and Twitter give marketers access to millions upon millions of users nationwide, but how much noise does a marketer compete with on Facebook? Of a brand’s fans, only an estimated 16% see the brand’s updates – imagine how few non-followers see them! With a blog, a business has a captive audience; the reader has taken the time to look up either the business or their products or services. Blogs are also great for SEO, especially if they answer commonly asked questions, so they’ll be sure to get you more relevant leads than a shout into the wind tunnel that is Facebook.

But every business is different – what works for your average marketer may not work for you. So how can a business owner be sure that their social media platforms are doing true heavy lifting when it comes to marketing? Track your results! Make sure that there is a specific marketing goal attached to every post on your blog, every tweet, every Facebook blurb. Social media can be a time sink, so if your seven daily Facebook posts are not getting more customers into your store or more prospects to attend your webinar, maybe those targeted blog posts deserve the extra love. In any event, time is precious, so be sure to spend it wisely!

For the complete MarketingSherpa study, click here.