Who Has The Advantage in Social Media: Big or Small Business?

by Scott Bishop on April 30, 2010

Big Business VS Small Business: Who Wins?

Both big and small businesses are wading through the murky waters of social media, trying to get a handle of how success is achieved. Both wanting to be the other guy.  Do big or small business have a better opportunity to succeed in social media?

Big businesses are desperately trying to act small in the social space and gain a true connection to their customers.

Small businesses wish they were big and had the brand recognition and what seems like unlimited amount of fans or followers.

I posted this question on Twitter, and spoke about it last night at Social Media Club Omaha. The results seem to be about 50 / 50. Here are my quick list of advantages of both sides.

Advantages of Big Business / Brands

Brand Recognition:

Large brands and companies come with the luxury of instant recognition.  I doesn’t take long for a well known company to rack up thousands and sometimes millions of fans and followers quickly.

Resources:

Social media is not free.  Most of the tools may not cost any money to use, but it’s extremely time consuming and requires resource allocation.  Fortunately, large businesses often have big marketing teams or budgets in place to hire or outsource talent to drive social initiatives.

Built in Conversations:

Engagement is the buzz of buzz words in social media.  The nice thing about a big brand is that, conversations are most likely already going on about them.  That makes engagement much easier than trying to create those conversations from scratch or just listening about your industry.

Advantages of Small Business

Low (close to customers)

The connection to a sale for a small business and a customer are often small.  Many customers are literally walking into a business or buying direct.  This puts them at an advantage using social media because they can directly connect with customers quickly.

Flexible

Being small allows for flexibility.  If a business tracks social numbers correctly, they can react and change direction on a dime.  There are no meetings that need to be scheduled.  There are no national television campaigns that need revision.  They can react.

Social media can provide instant feedback on anything from product or feature recommendations to new marketing campaigns.  Small businesses have the ability to listen to that feedback and apply it rapidly.

Lack of corporate b.s.

Nothing drives me more nuts that going through 7 different people and a legal team just to get an ok to send out an email campaign.  Large corporate cultures are the jokes of movies and sitcoms for a reason.  Small businesses can just do.  If you have an idea, implement it.

Easy to Identify a Win:

Small businesses can easily identify if there strategies are working.  It’s easier to track where sales are coming in from and if awareness is truly being built.

It’s Cost Effective

Without large ad budgets, social media may be one of the few options.  It does take time, but if done correctly, the move to social media marketing can return a nice ROI.

Can Appear Bigger:

Transparency in social media is an absurd notion.  We post the content we want people to see and read to help shape our brands.  In a digital space, you can appear to be larger than a 5 man / woman operation with no central office.  We are our own wizards behind the curtains.

I think the real answer is that like all things in social media…it depends.  The point is that regardless if you are big or small, get in the game.  Quit waiting on the sideline and pouting because you’re not the other team.

Regardless of the advantages one has over the over…without focus, objectives, and an execution strategy both big and small businesses alike will most likely fail in the social space.

What are your thoughts / opinions?

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Scott S. Bishop is editor for Real Time Marketer and a marketing strategist with a specialty in social media.  He is an avid blogger and active across the net.  He is @thescottbishop on Twitter

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Tagged as: business brands, buzz words, conversations, marketing, small business, small businesses

Article by Scott Bishop

Scott Bishop is editor for Real Time Marketer and is the Director of Social for an integrated marketing firm. He is an avid blogger and active across the net. He is @thescottbishop on Twitter

Scott has written 127 awesome articles for Us.

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  • http://www.sparkfiremarketing.com Karen Rocks

    Scott,

    Great article outlining the differences, as each has their own set of obstacles to overcome. I think small businesses can be positioned to come out strong using social media if they can work with the three major setbacks – time, talent and resources. Done correctly, social media has provided small businesses with large voices. And that's a marketer's dream.

  • sbishop

    Thanks for the comment Karen. Time certainly seems to be the biggest hurdle for small business utilizing social media, at least with the businesses I work with and talk too. But I think “time” is a factor in two ways…they need quick results and social media rarely works that way without momentum already built. And time to allocate to doing it correctly. Without a marketing person dedicated to social tools, most of the activities often fall by the wayside. Thanks for stopping by!

  • http://www.Twitter.com/ArtseyC ArtseyC

    Good points on both sides, Scott. The one thing I disagree with is the question of transparency. The notion that small business can (and should?) try to appear larger than they are is not something I would recommend. It can be found out, and when it is, you lose all credibility.

    If it's just two of us starting out, what's wrong with saying so? If your 7-person team is mostly-part timers, just fess up to that. If the product, service, and content do the job, your reputation will be bolstered rather than questioned. You have nothing to hide if you're not hiding anything. If you pretend to be something you're not, you will always have to cover the tracks, and the story of your business is flawed. Especially in Social Media, the story counts.

    So, transparency in social media is not an absurd notion, it's a choice.

    Now I'll go back and read your other article, The Myth of Social Media’s Transparency…

  • sbishop

    I never said that a business should should try to appear bigger, simply saying they can. And in some cases, that's an advantage.

    I still stand behind the idea that social media transparency is absurd. Telling everyone you're a “7 person team of mostly part-timers” is branding on the point of that organization, not transparency. I never think any business should lie, ever, but it's a choice to reveal that. If that's a piece of your story that you want customers to know, then share it. But selecting what to share and what not to in social media is a branding tactic. I doubt that same team would also share if their revenue is down 70% this quarter and they're behind on 2 projects. I doubt they share that there last employee was fired for showing up late for a month straight. Maybe they do, but I would imagine they are not fully open with every aspect of their business.

    We choose what we want to share and what we want others to see.
    Thanks for the comment and stopping by.

  • sbishop

    I never said that a business should should try to appear bigger, simply saying they can. And in some cases, that's an advantage.

    I still stand behind the idea that social media transparency is absurd. Telling everyone you're a “7 person team of mostly part-timers” is branding on the point of that organization, not transparency. I never think any business should lie, ever, but it's a choice to reveal that. If that's a piece of your story that you want customers to know, then share it. But selecting what to share and what not to in social media is a branding tactic. I doubt that same team would also share if their revenue is down 70% this quarter and they're behind on 2 projects. I doubt they share that there last employee was fired for showing up late for a month straight. Maybe they do, but I would imagine they are not fully open with every aspect of their business.

    We choose what we want to share and what we want others to see.
    Thanks for the comment and stopping by.

  • markwilliamschaefer

    Very good article Scott. I recently wrote an article on this topic. I came down squarely on the side of small business still havig opportunit despite the juggernauts. Be sure to check out the comment section! Amazing! http://businessesgrow.com/2010/05/04/the-power-…

    Thanks for the post!

  • sbishop

    Thanks for the comment Mark. I agree with you, small business has the advantage and most big businesses are trying to use social media to act small. I'll be sure to check out your article. Thanks for stopping by the blog.

  • Elie

    Hey Scott,

    Really interesting piece. Small business and Big businesses, both, can benefit from SMM. Having worked at Disney, as well as agency side at a development and IM firm – and having social media responsibilities in both places – the pros and cons you bring up ring true all over the map.

    I think the biggest question, however – remains: as a business owner, how do you determine if social networking is a worthwhile pursuit for your company, and how much time should you spend on it?

    Whether internal resources, or budget – somehow that “social conversation” requires attention and regular maintenance (for success, as you noted)- and I think it is a far cry to assume that SMM is for everybody (not that you've suggested it is).

    I read an interesting article on the question of whether social media marketing is worthwhile from a business-time investment p.o.v.

    Check it out, what do you think?
    http://blog.9thsphere.com/blog/social-media-mar…

    Thanks again for the informative and interesting article.

    Best,
    Elie

  • http://www.searchengineoptimisation.com Phil

    In my views, Small Business have more chance to success in social media as compared to big business housed, small business due to reputation take more positive customer comments and services fulfill responsibility

  • sbishop

    Thanks for the thoughtful comment Elie.

    You bring up a great point about rather or not social media marketing is worth a businesses time and resources. Each business must do a hefty amount of homework to determine what's right for them. I think that with some research you should be able to determine whether or not your specific goals can be applied and moved forward from online efforts. I will be the first to tell a business that social media / digital marketing may not make sense for their business…only the numbers will tell. But I do see a good reason for almost any established business to at least monitor for conversations to look for unhappy customers or potential targets.

    I'd love to hear more about your experience with social media for Disney. Thanks for the link too…I'll check that out!

  • Jennifer Margell

    Great Article! I think the small business has an advantage because they are more flexible and can roll with the punches. They can quickly make changes without going through a long approval process. Go small businesses : )

    Jen (owner of new… http://www.WorldHomeExchanges.com )

  • Anonymous

    Thanks for the comment Jennifer, I happen to agree with you. Level, or more level, playing feild is one of the reasons I’m so passionate about digital marketing and social media.  Small biz have a chance in this space where at one point they did not. 

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