This cat ain’t going back in the bag.
The following statements go AGAINST what most of my fellow marketing and advertising experts will tell you. That’s one reason I am posting this on my personal blog instead of my firm’s website FarrisMarketing.com.
The other reason I directed this message here, is that I need to speak frankly — not just as a marketing expert, but as a BUSINESS OWNER.
I founded my ad agency/marketing consulting practice with my two brothers almost 35 years ago. Our family members have been involved in some sort of small business since my grandfather came to the U.S. in the 1930s. We’ve had/have butcher shops, dry cleaners, snack food franchises, used car lots, a law practice, architectural firm, clothing stores, carpet stores. You name the category and my family has run a small business within it.
So I can see both sides of the issue. The issue —
IS SOCIAL MEDIA THE BEST WAY TO INCREASE BUSINESS?
Most marketing experts KISS SOCIAL MEDIA’S ASS. They will tell you —
A. How it reaches millions of people
B. How EASY it is to create and post marketing messages, and best of all…
C. It’s FREE!
But, the TRUTH is, as a marketing tool, many small business owners believe SOCIAL MEDIA SUCKS.
In fact a recent Forbes revealed that when asked which task small business owners would outsource if they could, social media was number one.
SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS HATE SOCIAL MEDIA — with good reasons. Here are the top three
A) TOO MUCH TIME -Planning, writing, scheduling and posting takes a lot of time. It just takes a small business owner away from their core/critical work for too long. My hometown is known for its pizza shops. Most are small business family-owned shops. Every time the owner is making up an Instagram post, he could be making pizza. He loses money and customers when he works on social media himself.
B) NOT GOOD AT IT – My uncle is the best mechanic I know. He can rebuild an engine and replace your worn-out brakes, but ask him to find his way around Facebook and he’s lost.
C) TOO EXPENSIVE – young naive business owners will point out that using social media as a marketing tool is free. But if you don’t have the time to create messages (see “A” above) or don’t have the expertise to create something that brings in business (see “B” above), then you have to hire someone. You can hire your nephew to do social media for your carpet cleaning business, but he doesn’t know much more than other 17-year old kids about marketing. So all he is going to attract is 17-year old girls and they don’t need carpets cleaned.
SO HOW COULD WE HELP SMALL BUSINESS SOCIAL MEDIA TO ATTRACT BUSINESS?
There had to be an answer. In my 30-years plus in the business, I have bought millions of dollars of TV advertising.
I’ve planned media buys containing hundreds of thousands of dollars in billboard, newspaper, magazine, trade show, direct mail and even digital advertising.
I’ve used PR to generate business for clients, I’ve created hundreds of events and sales promotions.
I HAVE SEEN SOCIAL MEDIA WORK FOR SMALL BUSINESSES. But it has worked when a team of experts like me and my staff have researched it, created the messages and posted it for the small business client.
It has worked when a business could afford to pay marketing consultants like me and my firm. It has worked when the owner only had to spend 10 minutes approving a campaign we developed for them.
However, most small businesses can’t afford to pay ad agency and marketing consultants like me to produce their social media. So we went to work on figuring out how we could condense the work firms like mine do for small businesses and making it cost effective enough for most small businesses.
It took two years, but the result was BOPsocial.com. BOP provides automated social media marketing for small business for as little as $299 a month. It takes a business owner 15 minutes to sign up and no more than 10 minutes a month to approve or reject their social media posts for the month.
Take a minute to check it out. WARNING, this is our “beta” version — our first version — so its not perfect, but we’d love to have your feedback on it. And no matter what, you’ll find it is the best way to do social media for your business — that’s a promise — from one business owner to another.
George Farris Oct 2022
BOPsocial.com for more info.