I was in a conversation with a hair dresser who told me that she did not need social media to find new customers. For her, she felt that traditional media was more appropriate for reaching new prospective clients. After all, she works with mostly seniors. She feels that most of her clients would only read news papers and flyers. She wants to spend her advertising money on flyers and traditional marketing methods that costs a fair amount of money. It is her business and she is free to do what she wants.
Unfortunately for this type of thinking, more and more seniors are getting onto computers and are having a lot of fun along the way. She also told me that word of mouth advertising works best for her. Last time I looked, social media involved a lot for word of mouth, so to speak. Let’s take a look at this example to see if social media can help her.
Let’s make it clear that we are talking about small business in this example. Most small businesses have very little money for advertising. When I am approached to advertise, it is usually going to cost $150.00 and up for radio, newspaper and other types of ads. Usually, it is very much more. And in my opinion, from my experience, it has never brought a good return on my investment. I feel like I am supporting someone else’s job to be honest.
For these traditional marketing methods to work, you have to repeatedly use them over and over again to get noticed. This adds up to some serious money. I suspect this hair dresser is spending about $40 for each ad in flyers and such. This can ad up. She must be seeing a return on her investment for her to continue putting money out for this type of advertising. But could she still benefit from social media?
Let’s call social media what it really is, Internet marketing. It is a given that more and more people are searching the Internet first to find what they are looking for. I have heard numbers like 85% to 97% in discussions about how many are searching the Internet first. The hair dresser’s customers are getting older and she will have to replace them as time passes.
Another thing to consider is this, gift certificates. Children are buying gift certificates for their parents to get their hair done. They are certainly becoming heavy users of the Internet. Another thing she mentioned to me is that she depends heavily on word of mouth. Internet marketing majors on word of mouth through posts and comments by others. She could be missing out on a large section of prospective clients. Let’s see who is on the Internet by age group:
Pew Internet’s survey shows that 38% of 65+ are online. This is a significant group of people who should not to be ignored. Looks at the rest of the other groups. I know that most of them have hair and could be prospective customers for this hair dresser.
I hear people telling others not to jump right in or rush into social media. It’s not for everyone. Well let’s see who social media is not for:
- Those who don’t have a web page (don’t need to worry about increasing it’s Google rank)
- Those who don’t want to be included in search engine results when customers search
- Those who have so much business that they don’t need to market at all
- Those who could care less about whether they attract more news customers
- Those who do not want others online to discover the great advantages that there business has to offer
- Those who do not want to make more friends, who could become customers
- Those who do not want to collaborate with others to improve their business and help others
I know that every small business may not have or want a web site. I also know that all the various social media applications may not be for every business; but I believe every business should have a Facebook Page. This will help them have some sort of web presence. Not every business may want to use Twitter, LinkedIn or Foursquare; but they should be on Facebook; so that when people search for a service, that business can show up in search results.
It certainly cannot be the cost of using Facebook that is the turn off for this hair dresser. She could do it all for free. She could spend a few moments to watch some videos on YouTube to see how to make a Facebook Page. She could invest a few moments of her time each day to update the Facebook Page with useful and interesting comments. This could help her attract more prospective clients down the road, as they find her in search engine results. It really is getting expensive for small businesses to use traditional marketing. Small businesses need to take advantage of Internet marketing/social media.
In summary, you don’t need to use social media if you are not serious about your business or if you fit into the list above. I don’t tell people to jump right in and be crazy with it. I encourage them to see what they are already doing, and see if it can be transfered onto social media. For small business, the cost is right. Now keep in mind that your time is still worth money; but it is more cost effective than traditional marketing and it can produce better measurable results.
For the hair dresser, I think she needs to seriously look at what she could accomplish in her business by just simply looking at Facebook. The benefits may not be immediate. It will take time to build momentum. Over time, as she puts more and more on the Internet, she will see a return on her investment.
If you have a business and someone tells you not to bother with social media, don’t listen. I am not saying “Jump right in”. What I am saying is this…”at least have a look yourself and talk with other business owners that are similar to yours”. See what you can learn. Give it an honest look. It might not be for you. But, it might be the answer to your prayers as well. And by the way, if someone tells you that they are a social media expert, run. Experts are the ones that others recommend because they do great work.
