small businesses research

[ChloeP80]

I'm doing a bit of research for a project on marketing techniques, particularly with small online retailers.
How important is social media when running and promoting a small business online?
Small businesses obviously don't have a large marketing department so how important are twitter, facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest? As well as things like Google +
I've been trying to read up on it and it seems like there are plenty of people who will do this for you, eg Facebook Publishing - iContact and this seems to be a big side of business that wouldn't have been around 5 years ago even.
I'm on twitter but don't tend to follow big businesses, partly because I think they'll just try to push their product in my face, which is very off-putting.

Any thoughts?

 

[asaratis]

Social media is likely not as effective as a good website, advertizing and some positive reviews. JMHO...of course.

 

[Darkwind]

Social media is likely not as effective as a good website, advertizing and some positive reviews. JMHO...of course.

A combination of all of it, however, can be done rather cheaply with pretty decent results.

Depending upon the skills of the SMO, a cheap website can be self installed that will implement much of the social media marketing aspects of a web presence. In the case of a content management system, such as WordPress, there are plugins that will connect your Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn pages to your content, and then its just a matter of targeted social media advertising to drive like minded individuals to your page and then web site.