WebProNews

Tag: SMBs

  • Pandemic Reinvention Is Real For SMBs, Says Bill.com CEO

    Pandemic Reinvention Is Real For SMBs, Says Bill.com CEO

    “I believe SMBs deserve innovation,” says Bill.com CEO and founder Rene Lacarte. “That innovation that we focus on is around the digital processes that are lacking in the back office of SMBs. We’ve seen it in part with the pandemic showing that there’s a need for being digital and to be able to run your business from anywhere. It’s a requirement now. The pandemic reinvention is real and something that we think is going to stick around.”

    Rene Lacarte, CEO of Bill.com, says that the pandemic reinvention is real for small and medium-sized businesses and that they need to innovate and digitize the back office:

    SMBs Deserve Innovation

    At the core of why I started the company is that I believe SMBs deserve innovation. That innovation that we focus on that I really believe is missing out there is around the digital processes that are lacking. We digitize the back office. Then we connect that back office to the banking system so money can move, to the accounting system so records can be reported, and to the accounting firms that they’re involved with.

    All of that connection creates a connective tissue that operates and automates the financial operations. Because of that it’s driving demand, it’s driving opportunity, and it’s driving growth across our existing customers as well as the new customers coming in. That’s how we do it. That’s how we bring the back office into the back pocket.

    Pandemic Reinvention Is Real For SMBs

    Nobody gets into business to actually do the back office. I grew up in small businesses. My parents had small businesses. My grandparents had small businesses. A lot of our friends had small businesses. This was always the bane of existence. This is what people had to do on Friday night. Who wants to do this on a Friday night? That’s what people are doing when they’re trying to run their business from their back pocket when they don’t have the tools. They have to do it at night at home.

    We take care of that. We automate the processes. That’s what’s driving the demand, it’s the opportunity. We’ve seen it in part with the pandemic showing that there’s a need for being digital. This opportunity to be able to run your business from anywhere is a requirement now. The pandemic reinvention is real and something that we think is going to stick around.

    Pandemic Reinvention Is Real For SMBs, Says Bill.com CEO Rene Lacarte
  • Barely a Quarter of SMBs Buy Software That Meets Their Needs

    Barely a Quarter of SMBs Buy Software That Meets Their Needs

    A new survey shows that only 27% of SMBs buy software that meets or exceeds their needs.

    Unlike many large businesses and enterprises, small and medium businesses often rely on off-the-shelf software for their daily operations. Despite that, the vast majority are making significant compromises when buying software, according to a survey by Capterra.

    In a Capterra survey of 1,000 small-business leaders who have influence on software purchase decisions, only 27% managed to secure what we call a “Great Match” on the last software purchase for their organization.

    That’s it! The rest either compromise on their original vision, or purchase software that fails to meet expectations—leading to further problems, additional software purchases, or, in the worst cases, purchase regret that forces small businesses to start over.

    Capterra recommends SMBs follow specific steps to avoid this problem, including focusing on internal goals, involving decision-influencers in the discussions, verifying information through independent sources, using free trial periods and sticking with shortlists of the best candidates.

    At a time when SMBs are already under increased pressure, Capterra’s survey highlights the challenges they face with something as important as the software they rely on.

  • SMB Manufacturers Accelerating Pivot To Digital

    SMB Manufacturers Accelerating Pivot To Digital

    A huge survey by Alibaba of 5,015 US B2B SMBs and SMB manufacturers indicates a significant pivot to digital. Small and medium manufactures have traditionally been slower to integrate digital into their businesses. However, according to the survey, SMB manufacturers have been digitizing at twice the rate of other industries during the pandemic – to support other manufacturers as they accelerate their digitization.

    Key findings from the full U.S. B2B SMB survey:

    • SMBs accelerated their pivot to digital: 93% of B2B companies are now conducting some portion of their business online, up from 90% in December, and 43% are utilizing ecommerce, an 8% increase over the same time period.
    • SMBs are finding opportunities internationally: even with supply chain disruptions during the pandemic, 63% of B2B companies report conducting some amount of cross border B2B trade, up from 59% in December.
    • SMB manufacturers surpassed other industries in digitization: amid the pandemic, manufacturers’ online B2B trade increased 8% – twice the rate of the overall 4% increase in all industries for the same period and tied with retail as the industries with the most digital growth. In December, U.S. manufacturers’ online B2B trade volume lagged all other industries except construction but have now passed multiple industries in their pivot to digital.

    “We were happy to see the increasing digitization of US B2B companies and that many are increasing trade despite the pandemic, showing the resilience and grit of American business owners and entrepreneurs,” said John Caplan, President of North America and Europe of Alibaba.com. “Our research finds that digitization is no longer a nice-to-have, but a must-have for companies in every industry to bridge from surviving to thriving in the next era of business.”

  • Twitter: New Timeline Should Benefit Businesses

    Twitter: New Timeline Should Benefit Businesses

    On Wednesday, Twitter confirmed reports of a new algorithmic timeline, but stressed that to enable it, users have to do so themselves in settings. In other words, the sky hasn’t fallen as many Twitter users would have had us all believe over the weekend.

    If a user does enable the functionality, the tweets Twitter thinks they will care about most will appear at the top of the timeline (still recent and in reverse chronological order). The rest of the tweets will appear underneath like usual. Users can also pull-to-refresh at any time to see new tweets at the top like normal.

    According to the company, people who had early access to this version of Twitter have tended to retweet and tweet more.

    Twitter says the new timeline is an improvement for consumers as well as for businesses and brands. In a separate announcement, the company talked up the brand implications. In that, product marketing manager Eric Farkas writes:

    Brands that create quality content have always performed well on Twitter. With this update, whether it comes from an SMB, large brand, consumer, or athlete you follow, the best content shines through. We’ve noticed in our early experiments that people who have this experience turned on Tweet and Retweet more on Twitter — and we believe this means that brands can reach a more engaged potential audience. Throughout our tests, we also saw an increase in engagement for brands’ organic Tweets and an increase in engagement for Tweets about live events.

    Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts will work the same way as always, and are not affected by this change. Brands will still have access to the same suite of creative, measurement, and targeting tools to make sure theirs ads display to the right people, at just the right moment.

    Farakas shares comments from several business executives who have found the new approach helpful. He also points to a set of best practices for Twitter content strategy and a help center article about the new Timeline experience.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Microsoft Extends Office 365 Migration Service to SMBs

    Microsoft is now offering SMBs assistance with moving to Office 365 by extending onboarding and migration support to customers between 50 and 149 seats through its Microsoft FastTrack service.

    FastTrack was previously only available to customers with 150 seats or more.

    “Microsoft partners who serve SMBs say companies reach a breaking point with Google Apps around the 50-employee mark, the point at which a business typically starts to require centralized management capabilities, enterprise-grade security features, and integrated productivity and collaboration apps,” a spokesperson for the company tells WebProNews. “That’s why the new SMB offer is designed to help businesses with 50+ seats deploy Office 365 faster and more seamlessly.”

    “Whether a business is currently using a cloud productivity solution other than Office 365 or hasn’t yet made the transition to the cloud – this is the best time for businesses to choose Office 365,” the spokesperson says.

    The company is also expanding the FY16 Adoption Offer to include Office 365 small business plans and adding payouts for customer deployments of 50–149 seats so partners will be eligible for a payout of $25 per seat for 50–149 seats.

    Microsoft discusses the services more here.

    Image via Microsoft

  • Small Businesses On What Would Help Them Sell More Online

    Small Businesses On What Would Help Them Sell More Online

    A study recently released by Assurant Solutions finds that over 40% of small-to-midsize businesses say the reasons they have a hard time competing with larger e-tailers is a lack of product expansion opportunities and IT integration skillset.

    The survey polled 450 merchants across the United States in an effort to gauge the state of ecommerce for smaller businesses.

    “SMB merchants see great benefit in selling products and services through their web storefronts, but they readily admit to challenges that prevent them from selling more and competing with larger companies,” Assurant says. “In fact, roughly a third of those polled (34%) said that between 25% – 50% of their annual revenue comes from online sales. More than a third (35%) said their online sales have grown by 25% over the past five years.”

    56% are missing out on a chance to generate additional revenue by increasing their average order value, the survey finds. Less than 10% of online sales come from up-selling or cross-selling at the time of checkout for these merchants.

    Over 43% say they want to increase their up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, but can’t add organic products and services that fit the mold or they lack the internal IT skillset to integrate products into their ecommerce platform.

    “It’s clear that smaller merchants want to amplify their online sales potential, but many of them are unsure how to make it happen cost-effectively,” said Matthew Pufall, Director of Product for Assurant Product Protection.

    Over 26% of merchants said more complimentary product offerings would help them sell more products and services online. Another 26% said easier integration into partner platforms would do the trick.

    Over 15% said support services provided by partner providers would help, while over 27% said products and services that enable more revenue opportunities would. Nearly 5% said they’re not interested in selling more products online.

  • You’re A Pain In My Collab: Collaboration Apps Create New Issues For SMB Productivity

    WebProNews ContentShare from ORC International and Samepage

    Bummer! A new study proves the age-old complaint: Employees hate email. But if you’re thinking about adopting newer collaboration apps to squash the complaints — think again. Switching out email for multiple collaboration apps is creating a whole new mess or what a few are calling “collaboration paradox.”

    To get to the root of this very issue, collaboration app Samepage sought to find out exactly what SMBs are – and aren’t – using, and why. Some of the interesting key findings from a recent Samepage and ORC International survey include:

    • 80% use at least three collaboration apps, 50% use six or more
    • 80% use these apps to work with customers and partners
    • 90% believe collaboration apps are fulfilling adoption objectives
    • 65% find it difficult to find the correct file in their file sharing folders
    • 88% think that instant messaging is good for asking quick questions, but limited beyond that
    • 65% want fewer emails and 44% agree that email is not good for managing teams and projects
    • 65% are looking for a better solution to improve communication and increase productivity

    “The world needs a better approach to team collaboration. It’s a problem that’s universal; we call it the ‘collaboration paradox.’ With so many apps to choose from —email, IM, file-sharing, task/project management and online productivity — team-based content and conversations have become increasingly fragmented across a slew of siloed applications and this actually hinders collaboration,” said Scott Schreiman, CEO of Samepage. “We believe in a more holistic approach to team productivity, uniting content and conversation on a single page which enables contextual collaboration.”

    Additional findings from the press release are hosted on WebProNews and all findings can be found on Samepage at bit.ly/SamepageSMBSurvey.

  • Pinterest Updates Billions Of Place Pins With Location Data And Info

    Pinterest Updates Billions Of Place Pins With Location Data And Info

    Two years ago, Pinterest launched Place Pins adding a travel magazine-like experience to the popular social/search site. These enabled users to see information like the address of a place, phone numbers, etc. in a format designed to look natural to the Pinterest experience.

    This week, Pinterest announced the update of seven billion pins with new location data and info. This is in response to travel becoming increasingly popular on the site/app.

    “With these updates, it’s easier to visit the places you’ve Pinned,” Pinterest says. “In just a tap, Pinners can get directions through Google and Apple maps, call a business, visit a website, view hours of operations and top reviews from people who’ve been there.”

    “As a discovery engine, we’re making it easier to discover new places to visit, restaurants to try and sights to see in your city and around the world,” it adds. “Now, when you save a Pin, we’ll show you other places to visit nearby on a map and other Pins people have saved from the same place.”

    As Pinterest puts more focus on this local search type of experience, it’s bound to open up new opportunities for businesses with physical locations.

    Pinterest is already presenting itself more and more as a search service (including to advertisers), and now that Pinterest is monetizing itself with promoted and buyable pins, it’s hard to imagine that some of this won’t translate to place pins as well.

    Considering that most small businesses consider phone call to be the most important success metric, Pinterest’s expansion of Place Pins is surely a welcome move forward.

    Here’s a look at the 20 top pinned places on Pinterest:

    1. Positano, Campania, Italy
    2. Musha Cay Island, Bahamas
    3. Hanoi, Vietnam
    4. Havasu Falls, Grand Canyon, Arizona, U.S.A.
    5. Petrohué Falls, Chile
    6. Jarlshof, Shetland, Scotland
    7. Kyoto, Japan
    8. Port Fairy, Victoria, Australia
    9. Glacier National Park, Montana, U.S.A.
    10. Tulum, Mexico
    11. Lisbon, Portugal
    12. New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A.
    13. Kjeragbolten, Norway
    14. Marrakesh, Morocco
    15. Cape Town, South Africa
    16. Somoto’s Canyon, Nicaragua
    17. Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
    18. Milford Sound, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand
    19. Reykjavik, Iceland
    20. New York City, New York, U.S.A.

  • Comcast Business Offers New Voice Mobility Service For SMBs

    Comcast Business announced the availability of a new service called Comcast Business Voice Mobility. It serves as a phone line specifically for small and medium-sized businesses, and includes a mobile app to help keep them from missing any business calls and messages while away from the desk.

    As a spokesperson for Comcast Business tells us, “Using the mobile app, you can quickly check voicemails, make and receive calls, transfer calls and more on your iOS or Android mobile phone. It allows you to stay connected to your business phone line at all times using a single phone number.”

    The offering is designed for employees whose jobs have them on the go, enabling them to stay connected to their business phone line all the time with the same number.

    Features include voicemail, caller ID, the ability to move calls between office and mobile phone, the ability to transfer active calls to other phone numbers or extensions, access to business contacts, access to recent calls, and a “do not disturb” feature.

    “Comcast delivers superior call quality to millions of small business owners over our owned and managed network, and this app extends our voice capabilities to employees on their iOS or Android mobile phones,” says John Guillaume, vice president of Product Management at Comcast Business.

    Voice Mobility costs $29.95 per month with purchase of Internet.

    Image via Comcast

  • Small Businesses Regret Not Doing More Of This

    Small Businesses Regret Not Doing More Of This

    Branding is a key component to a successful business, and that includes when your’e first starting out. It seems a lot of businesses regret not spending more of their efforts on branding in the early days.

    Do you regret not putting more focus on branding? How high of a priority is it to you now? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    A recent survey found that small businesses are spending less and less time on branding initiatives such as logos and other marketing and sales activities when they’re first getting off the ground. Three out of four believe looking professional online boosts sales, but don’t prioritize that ever-so-important early branding. Meanwhile, six in ten say a company’s brand and website influenced their own purchase decisions.

    Three fourths of those surveyed said a professional looking website helps attract better customers, according to the survey, which was conducted by 99Designs as reported by eMarketer. The latter utilized data from the survey to illustrate areas SMBs owners and managers dedicated most of their time when starting their businesses.

    emarketer

    It’s no surprise that finding customers ranks so highly here, but it seems a little odd that logo and branding rank so low given the largely agreed upon importance of these elements in actually getting these customers. Even company, which is obviously a major part of branding is just about as low a priority based on the the findings.

    Women invest more time and money into getting a logo and company brand than men do when starting a business, and more women than men believe a professional-looking website is a priority, 99Designs found. Age plays a role as well. the older the respondents, the less importance they placed on the look and feel of their business.

    Over half of businesses surveyed think they’ve possibly or definitely lost business because of a poorly designed site. In terms of industry, real estate and transportation/delivery businesses are most likely to say a company’s look and feel isn’t important.

    “Despite differences among the sexes and industries, most respondents did believe in the power of branding – especially a professional-looking website – to drive and sustain business,” the firm said. “More than three-quarters of respondents (76%) agreed that a professional-looking site ‘will help me attract a better customer.’ Two-thirds of respondents (63%) strongly agree with the statement, ‘how positively my customers perceive my brand is important to me’ [and] ‘Being memorable’ ranked second – at 54% of respondents – only to ‘Providing the best customer service’ as a top priority in sustaining a long-term, viable business.”

    In its research, eMarketer points to another study conducted in December. This one is from The Alternative Board, and asked small business owners which areas of their marketing strategy they would have improved upon when starting their businesses if they had it to do over again. Over half said brand building, which was reportedly the top response by far.

    While not attached to its actual survey on the subject, 99Designs actually has a pretty helpful infographic about steps you can take to improve your branding efforts when you’re getting started.

    Print

    Robert Jones, a strategist at brand consultants Wolff Olins, recently wrote of what small companies often get wrong with their branding efforts, and how to put them right. He says they’re not thinking about their brand at all, while focusing on the day-to-day, and focusing too much on ads and not enough on experience. They’re not communicating brand values to employees, are failing to innovate, and are being too secretive, he says.

    If you had it to do over again, would you put more emphasis on your branding efforts when you were starting out? What are some things you’re doing now to improve your brand? Discuss.

    Images via eMarketer, 99Designs

  • Facebook Offers Place Tips To U.S. Small Businesses

    You know how Facebook has been doing a lot of things that cater to small businesses lately? That continues as the company starts to roll out a major way for brick-and-mortars to get relevant content in front of potential customers.

    Facebook announced that it’s expanding Place Tips support to SMBs across the United States. This enables customers to better engage with businesses from within their physical stores.

    Introducing Place Tips in News Feed from Facebook on Vimeo.

    “Place Tips (first introduced in January) is an optional feature that gathers useful information about a business/landmark—like posts from the business’ Page, upcoming events and friends’ recommendations and check-ins—and shows it at the top of News Feed to in-store visitors,” explains a Facebook spokesperson. “Over the last six months, local businesses that have tried Place Tips saw an increase in Page traffic from in-store visitors. Now, any US-based SMB can sign up to request a Facebook Bluetooth beacon (at the bottom of this new website) to help ensure their customers see Place Tips.”

    “To improve the customer experience, businesses can write a customizable welcome note that appears at the top of the Place Tips feed and use it to promote items or share facts and tips about their establishment,” Facebook explains in a blog post. “A bookstore could use the welcome note to tell visitors where a book signing is happening in the store, while a popular deli may share menu items that famous people have ordered.”

    “Place Tips are shown to people who are in store and who have given Facebook permission to access their location on their phone,” it adds. “They’re also shown to people who check in to the business on Facebook. Because Place Tips are personalized and designed to be useful, we only show them when there is enough content from the business and a person’s friends to offer an enjoyable experience.”

    To take advantage of the feature, businesses can get a free beacon from Facebook. It’s prioritizing businesses with active Pages full of content, including photos, check-ins, and status updates from both the business and its customers. You can request one here.

    Update: A Facebook spokesperson tells us: “Place Tips can be seen on the Facebook app for both iOS and Android, it’s only iPhones that can connect with the physical beacons for now.”

    Images via Facebook

  • Is This Facebook’s Most Small Business-Friendly Offering Yet?

    Facebook announced the launch of its local awareness ads last fall. These enable local business advertisers to target Facebook users based on their location. If a person is near the business, Facebook can advertise to them. Now, the adds have a new feature that will enable the user to interact directly with the business.

    “Local awareness ads are built to be more cost-effective than traditional advertising channels like newspaper while offering more precise targeting and greater reach,” the company explained upon launch. “We think they’re the best way for local businesses to reach people near them, and the best way for people who use Facebook to discover more useful things in their area.”

    When the ads were released, they came with a “Get Directions” button option.

    “After creating an ad, a Page owner can simply enter their business’s address and the radius around which they’d like to reach, and Facebook will use that information in order to create an audience comprised of people who live in that area, or were recently near the business,” a spokesperson for Facebook explained in an email at the time. “For more precise targeting, marketers can also choose the age and gender of their audience. And with convenient call-to-action options such as ‘Get Directions’ or ‘Like Page,’ business owners are able to easily prompt ad engagement.”

    Now there’s another interaction option: Call Now.

    “Our new local awareness objective is the first Facebook ad objective created explicitly for local businesses like yours,” Facebook tells businesses on its landing page. “Ads can be created right from your Page, in just a few minutes. And by adding a ‘Call Now’ button, customers can call you right from your ad in News Feed. Use it today to get more sales, new customers and great results.”

    When a person clicks the button in an ad, the phone automatically dials the business.

    Facebook says local awareness ads are optimized to let you reach the most amount of people for the least amount of money. You can see the results of the ads right on your Page in the notifications panel, where you can see metrics like people reached and clicks. You can specifically see Call Now clicks.

    Recent research from BrightLocal found that business consider phone calls to be the most valued success metric of their online marketing efforts, compared to web traffic, search rankings, and significantly over customers actually walking through the door or inquiring via their website.

    On why businesses value phone calls so highly compared to these other metrics, BrightLocal CEO Myles Anderson told WebProNews, “Firstly there are many local businesses that don’t cater to walk-in customers (e.g. gardeners, plumbers, accountants, therapists, mobile-masseuses) but they all have a phone,” Anderson says. “Secondly, calls convert better than online enquiries. Customers are more engaged (they’ve taken the time to call) and a business has a greater opportunity to understand the customer’s need and propose the best solution for them. Thirdly, speaking to a customer on the phone is often cheaper than dealing with customers in-location. So if you can pre-qualify/pre-sell a customer on the phone then it’s a lower cost per sale.”

    We recently talked about how Facebook is actually doing quite a few things that can benefit small businesses and what they can get out of the social network. The new Call Now button could perhaps be one of the most beneficial yet.

    Via AdWeek

  • Is Facebook More Small Business-Friendly Than You Thought?

    Facebook is dedicating more resources to trying to stay in the good graces of small businesses, even after it has continually made changes to its News Feed algorithm over the past year and a half, which have largely been detrimental to them.

    Do you think Facebook can still be a valuable asset to small businesses despite the organic reach issue? Let us know in the comments.

    According to the company, there are 40 million small businesses using Facebook, and last year, it enabled $227 billion of economic impact and 4.5 million jobs globally.

    Its latest small business efforts involve a new series of educational events and live chat support for advertisers.

    “Boost Your Business”

    First off, Facebook announced the 2015 Boost Your Business program, which is made up of a series of half-day and 2-hour pop up events, which will educate small businesses on best practices and the “latest marketing strategies and tools”.

    The company has partnered with famed Facebook marketing consultant Mari Smith, MailChimp, Shopify, Visa, and Zenefits to help with the events. Facebook’s own director of small business Jonathan Czaja will also be in attendance.

    The half-day events feature a small business panel and Q&A session moderated by Smith, a small business networking center in which attendees can speak with panelists, a “learn-how zone” with educational videos, Facebook/partner counters where attendees can speak with industry experts, two Facebook learning tracks (one on growing online sales and one on driving in-store sales), and partner sessions which attendees can choose from hosted by MailChimp, Shopify, and Visa. These events will also feature a keynote speech from Czaja.

    The half-day events cost $25 per ticket, and include a $50 Facebook ad coupon on arrival.

    The two-hour pop-up events include a network expo with small business organizations, the chance to meet business leaders and decision makers from the community, presentations of Facebook best practices, local small business panels, and the chance to win one of three $500 ad credit giveaways.

    Facebook describes Mari Smith as “one of the worlds most influential and knowledgeable new media thought leaders and one of Facebook’s top marketing experts.”

    She recently spoke with WebProNews about how businesses can utilize some of Facebook’s newer features in what could be a semi-preview of the types of things she’ll discuss at the events.

    In light of the organic reach blow Facebook has dealt to Facebook pages, we asked Smith at the time if she still sees Facebook as a viable platform for marketing a small business (especially one with a low marketing budget).

    She said, “Yes – I would recommend that low budget be allocated to what are called ‘dark posts.’ That is, ads in the News Feed that look like a Page wall post, but don’t actually appear on the Page. With very granular targeting to reach the exact target market, small businesses can do exceptionally well using Facebook. In addition, making use of custom audiences is a must. This is where a business can upload its own email database, or segments thereof, and place ads in the News Feed to that target group. Plus, using website custom audiences helps a business to retarget its website visitors with Facebook ads.”

    “Facebook recently introduced a new ad feature called ‘Conversion Lift Measurement’ to help advertisers track better ROI, especially offline sales,” she added. “Although the new metric is only available to select large advertisers, this is great news for small businesses when the feature eventually becomes available.”

    More on Conversion Lift Management here.

    “In addition, we’ll soon see the rollout of Facebook’s ‘Atlas’ advertising product that allows retargeting and tracking via mobile devices,” Smith said. “Retargeting typically works via cookies; however, cookies don’t work on mobile. The way Atlas works, is advertisers can then place ads to remarket to visitors whether they view on desktop, mobile or tablet. In other words, reaching the exact audience no matter what device they’re on.”

    “Page owners may wish to try out the new organic Interest Targeting feature to see if that helps create a greater reach,” she continued. “Prior to publishing a piece of content, admins can pre-select subsets of their fanbase. Another recent change is the ability to create a Post End Date – this stops a post from showing in News Feed at the specific time/date that you wish. Handy for, as Facebook states, ‘a publisher can use this to remove yesterday’s weather report from News Feed.’”

    We talked more about these features in an article here.

    Smith will only be appearing at the four half-day events in San Diego, Minneapolis, Nashville, and Boston. She had this to say on her website with regards to the event series:

    I’ve been a raving evangelist of the power of Facebook – specifically for business use – since I first joined the platform on May 4th, 2007. My 8th anniversary of being on Facebook (my ‘Faceversary’!) is coming up. This is truly the perfect timing for me to work directly with Facebook to support the deeper education of small and medium sized businesses – something I’m very passionate about, having lead numerous Facebook marketing live and virtual trainings for many years.

    As you know, there’s been innumerable changes to Facebook’s business pages, ads and News Feed algorithm over the years. What works for businesses in today’s Facebook world is very different to what worked even last year.

    I have long believed that the best antidote to lackluster results on Facebook is education. And, not just training on how to use the Facebook (ad) products; but a full-on integrated online marketing approach that includes optimized landing pages, lead generation, email marketing and customer relationship and retention strategies.

    Boost Your Business isn’t Facebook’s only new effort to educate businesses about getting more out of Facebook. About a month ago, Facebook announced BluePrint, a program that trains marketers on how to create better campaigns that “drive business results”.

    It’s kind of like a Khan Academy for Facebook marketing, and includes 40 learning paths/modules that can be accessed from desktop or mobile. They’re available to anyone with a Facebook account. Here’s a look at the different courses.

    Online Chat Support

    As mentioned earlier, Facebook is also launching online chat support for small business advertisers. They can access this by clicking “Get Help” on the Facebook for Business website. They can chat and screen share with a trained Ads Specialists and get “quick” answers to their Facebook advertising questions, according to the company.

    The feature will roll out in the US, UK, and Ireland for now, and will be made available to additional countries later in the year. Facebook says it will also test mobile chat and phone support this year.

    According to TechCrunch, Czaja says Facebook has “hundreds of reps” handling email and chat support, and that the company intends to grow that number “dramatically” in the coming years.

    Facebook Wants Businesses To Do More

    Facebook doesn’t just want to educate businesses and give them more tools. They also want businesses to “make themselves useful” as the Wall Street Journal reports. From that:

    Now, Facebook wants businesses to beef up their offerings, said vice president of small business Dan Levy. That could mean helping users book flights, get directions or schedule an appointment with a plumber. “We’re in the process of making a lot of updates to pages,” Levy said. “Increasingly the utility of pages for people and businesses is something that’s really important.”

    Some big businesses use their Facebook pages this way. Southwest Airlines LUV -3.47%, for example, has a “book now” button on its Facebook page that sends users to its website. Retailer J. Crew’s page links to its ecommerce site.

    Facebook is certainly forcing businesses and marketers to get more creative.

    “For brands who have put all their efforts into developing and growing a community on Facebook, the decline of organic reach feels like being denied access to their own fans. Brands now have to work harder to reach their target audiences, or, they simply have to cough up the money,” Moment.me CEO Dovev Goldstein recently told WebProNews. “For big brands with deep pockets, this might be less of a problem, but for small to medium businesses, this new development can seem to pose a big barrier to making social media work for them.”

    “While it might seem unfair to brands who have spent time and money growing their likes on Facebook, for social media marketers themselves, this development simply forces them to get more creative and clever in how they use the social medium as a way to promote their brand’s story,” he said. “Yes, the decline in organic reach does mean that social media marketing will have to be conducted differently, but it can also be looked at as a new opportunity to redefine how brands communicate in this space. Small businesses in particular have an opportunity to shine here. They can use their relatively small size to be hyper-targeted in their outreach, going after individual users as opposed to posting a promotional post designed to pull in more quantity over quality.”

    Is Video the Answer?

    Is video the answer to all of small businesses’ Facebook problems? Probably not, but all signs point to it being a pretty big help.

    The company has been constantly pushing video all year since its January announcement that video posts per person has increased 75% globally and 94% in the US. Numerous studies have since surfaced finding Facebook video to be a large focus of marketers and an effective tool. Video has trumped photos as the post format of choice for the best organic reach.

    “I think all marketers have the opportunity to do video, and that’s pretty exciting, including SMBs who would never be able to hire a film crew and buy a TV ad,” said Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg during the company’s earnings call last week. “We’re seeing those put videos in. Over 1 million SMBs have posted videos and done really small ad buys around them. And that’s pretty cool because I don’t think there are probably 1 million advertisers who have bought TV ads in that same period of time.”

    A study from Visible Measures found that Facebook is more effective than YouTube for driving immediate growth in video viewership, though YouTube still dominates as the video’s life goes on.

    Organic Reach Picture Worsens, But Ad Effectiveness Gets Better

    In terms of organic reach in general, Facebook is still making algorithm changes that are most likely unfavorable for Pages. As recently as last week, Facebook announced yet more changes, one of which will show some people more content from their friends and less from Pages.

    On the paid side of things, however, the effectiveness of Facebook ads appears to only be getting better. We recently looked at a report from Nanigans, which found that click-through rates increased 17% quarter-over-quarter and about 260% year-over-year as advertisers have embraced different types of ad formats like video and multi-product ads.

    We also looked at a report fro Kinetic Social finding click-through rates to be up 266% year-over-year with the average CTR across all Facebook campaigns continuing to rise. Here’s what CTR looked like by ad type, placement and vertical:

    Facebook is Giving Businesses More Tools

    You can hate on Facebook for the organic reach thing all you want, but there’s no question that the company has released a multitude of new tools that businesses can potentially take advantage of. This includes a lot of ad tools, but also other things.

    On the ad side, there’s the Ads Manager app, which helps businesses manage their ad campaigns from their mobile devices. It also launched the Audience Network, its mobile ad network, which lets mobile apps monetize through Facebook’s active advertisers. Other semi-new ad-related offerings include local awareness ads, conversion lift measurement, and of course product ads.

    A couple months ago, Facebook announced that it reached 2 million active advertisers. At the time, we ran through many of the company’s latest ad offerings including, but not limited to these things.

    In January, Facebook launched Place Tips, which appear at the top of users’ News Feeds to give them information about the places they’re at.

    At the same time, the company announced that it’s testing Bluetooth beacons with select businesses that allow them to tap into this functionality. For brick-and-mortar businesses, this is a major area to keep an eye on as time goes on.

    Facebook has made numerous moves, which point to the social network becoming a better place for businesses and individuals to sell products. In addition to the multi-product ads, Facebook acquired shopping search engine TheFind to incorporate its technology into the Facebook ad ecosystem.

    Facebook also has a Buy button, which is still only available on a limited basis, but it did give advertisers call-to-action buttons in December, which include a “shop now” option. The company has also added new buying and selling features to Groups.

    Another recently launched a tool that has the potential to benefit small businesses is a new standalone Android app called Hello, which serves as a caller ID app, but also as a provider of local business search and information.

    Opportunities with Messenger

    It also added peer-to-peer payments to Messenger, not entirely unlike Square’s Square Cash offering, which that company recently turned into a small business marketing vehicle with $Cashtags.

    And speaking of Messenger, in addition to turning the product into its own developer platform (which could provide some business opportunities itself), Facebook announced last month that it is readying some business-specific features for it. Businesses will be able to connect with customers directly through this intimate messaging platform, potentially replacing email as a communication channel for some customers.

    As a business, you can enable your customers to connect with you via Messenger. If they elect to do so, you’ll be able to send them personalized updates and talk to them in real time.

    You can use custom layouts for order confirmation, shopping updates, etc. As the company says, “This lets your customers keep all their order info in one place and reach out to you if they need to change anything.”

    Facebook is hoping businesses will use this to improve their customer support experiences, which as studies have shown, are not particularly great when it comes to social media.

    Budget and Time are Obstacles

    Besides the reduction of organic reach on Facebook, small businesses’ biggest obstacles are their budgets and their time/resources for marketing.

    A study from BrightLocal found that 34% of small businesses allocate less than 10% of their marketing budgets to online channels, while 50% allocate less than 30% and only 29% allocate over 70%.

    “I found this figure a little perplexing when you consider the other responses SMBs gave,” CEO Myles Anderson told WebProNews. “75% said online was effective at bringing in new customers & 3 of top 4 most effective marketing channels are ‘digital’. Yet SMBs allocate a disproportionately low % of their marketing budgets online. I believe the reason is a combination of a few factors.”

    “Many business owners handle it themselves so don’t assign a monetary budget to online marketing,” he said. “The survey showed that 64% of business owners handle their internet marketing themselves. Online marketing isn’t applicable or doesn’t work for some businesses so they don’t invest. Some businesses rely solely on Word of Mouth to bring in new customers so don’t invest in online. Budgets are too low to play in the online arena.”

    The study found a direct correlation between the number of employees the business has and the monthly marketing budget.

    30% of those running the business on their own said online marketing was simply ‘not effective’. When you have to do everything, it’s not hard to understand why that might be. The fewer people a business has, the harder it is to do marketing right.

    According to another report from Thrive Analytics, 77% of small and medium-sized businesses don’t think they have the time or knowledge to manage their digital media efforts effectively, while 70% wish they could take advantage of digital media to help them expand their businesses and reach.

    That study did find that just after company websites (and we’re talking a one percentage point difference here), Facebook and/or social media sites are the biggest area of focus for budget growth planned by SMBs over the next twelve months.

    However, other research finds that small businesses haven’t increased their social presences at all over the past year:

    “When you think about our marketer growth, I think we have an ability to grow both the number of advertisers who use our platform, but also the percentage of their business that we get,” said Sandberg on the earnings call. “So 30 million small business pages continuing to grow [again, now 40 million]. We have an opportunity to turn those businesses into advertisers and marketers, and that’s what we’ve done successfully and we’re going to continue to focus on that. And we do that by building very simple ad products.”

    “There are some who spend a large portion of their budget on Facebook, but that’s actually very unusual,” she told investors. “For most people, even when they start spending with us, we’re a small portion of their budget. And when you look at the consumer time we get, we are not getting the equivalent amount of time or resources from our marketers really of any size, and therein lies our opportunity to grow.”

    Yes, Facebook wants you to advertise. The free ride to the News Feed is a thing of the past, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Facebook isn’t small business-friendly. The advertising opportunities are only improving, but even beyond that, the company is putting out a lot of interesting tools and features that businesses may be able to take advantage of.

    Either way, Facebook is clearly dedicated to trying to win over the minds of distraught small businesses. How do you think it’s doing? Discuss.

    Images via Facebook, Socialbakers, Nanigans, Kinetic Social, BrightLocal, Thrive Analytics, eMarketer

  • Sheryl Sandberg On What Facebook Is Doing For Small Businesses

    In recent months there have been a lot of articles written about how Facebook is hurting or “failing” small businesses.

    In November, Tech Times wrote that “Facebook is killing small business entrepreneurs”.

    Last month, Fast Company published an article called “How Facebook is Failing Local Businesses“.

    Are these stories exaggerated? It really depends on the business, but in general, probably. Either way, it seems worth taking a look at what the company said about small and medium sized businesses on its earnings call on Wednesday.

    In her prepared remarks, COO Sheryl Sandberg said, “In Q2 of last year, we shared that we reached 30 million active business Pages on Facebook. This number continues to grow as more and more small businesses are using our free Pages product – and we remain focused on converting these Page owners into advertisers. One way we’re doing this is by providing simple, easy-to-use products; over 80% of new advertisers start with entry-level tools like a promoted post or Page like. We are increasingly focused on making sure these tools work well on mobile. We’re also educating marketers on how to use Facebook more effectively. We recently launched two online training resources: Blueprint, for large clients and agencies, and ‘Learn How’ videos for small businesses. These efforts are paying off. In Q1 we announced that we now have over 2 million active advertisers.”

    She talked about SMBs more during the Q&A session at the end of the call. Here are her words on the subject (via Seeking Alpha’s transcript):

    I think all marketers have the opportunity to do video, and that’s pretty exciting, including SMBs who would never be able to hire a film crew and buy a TV ad. We’re seeing those put videos in. Over 1 million SMBs have posted videos and done really small ad buys around them. And that’s pretty cool because I don’t think there are probably 1 million advertisers who have bought TV ads in that same period of time.

    …

    On SMBs, we have a very small test in the U.S. We started last quarter for buy-on Facebook, and that enables people to buy products from merchants with a buy button on Pages, and it is a product that is used and aimed at SMBs. We’re also very focused on helping SMBs have a presence, especially a mobile presence. 35% of SMBs in the United States, which is probably ahead of most other countries, don’t have a web presence at all, and an even smaller percentage of SMBs have a mobile web presence or any kind of mobile presence that works. And so Pages are a good and free and easy way to have a mobile presence, and that’s something we’re very focused on growing.
    …

    When you think about our marketer growth, I think we have an ability to grow both the number of advertisers who use our platform, but also the percentage of their business that we get. So 30 million small business pages continuing to grow. We have an opportunity to turn those businesses into advertisers and marketers, and that’s what we’ve done successfully and we’re going to continue to focus on that. And we do that by building very simple ad products.

    And then when you think about the percentage of spend we have, what I said before on this call, which is we only have a small percentage of even our large customers, that’s true of our small customers, too. Now, there are some who spend a large portion of their budget on Facebook, but that’s actually very unusual. For most people, even when they start spending with us, we’re a small portion of their budget. And when you look at the consumer time we get, we are not getting the equivalent amount of time or resources from our marketers really of any size, and therein lies our opportunity to grow.

    One of the things that has been the biggest thorn in the side of small businesses (especially those with lower marketing budgets) is the fact that Facebook keeps changing its News Feed algorithm in ways that prevent Facebook Page posts from being seen by more people without having to pay for visibility.

    In fact, the company just announced more changes this week, which don’t look particularly good for these businesses. CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed these on the earnings call as well, though his words probably aren’t of much comfort to those who have been suffering from these changes.

    Facebook did make another announcement this week, which could potentially be good for small businesses with Facebook pages. It launched a new Android app that provides users with Facebook information for caller ID as well as business search functionality. These separate Facebook apps, however, don’t always gain a ton of users, so it’s hard to say what kind of impact this one will have.

    Image via Facebook

  • Does Your Business Have The Time To Get Online Marketing Right?

    Does Your Business Have The Time To Get Online Marketing Right?

    The fewer people a business has, the harder it is to do marketing right.

    Most small and medium-sized businesses don’t think they have the time or knowledge to manage their digital media efforts effectively, according to a new report from Thrive Analytics. 77% said as much, while 70% wish they could take advantage of digital media to help them expand their businesses and reach.

    Is a lack of time preventing you from being able to take care of the marketing strategy you’d like to employ? Let us know in the comments.

    The data comes from a survey of over 1,100 SMBs collected in January.

    “The problem is most small business owners feel current marketing providers don’t have their best interest in mind,” says Jason Peaslee of Thrive Analytics. “Owners often feel marketing providers push “flavor of the month” products on them and don’t bother to learn what they actually need. Current providers are falling short on several fronts including poor product performance (60 percent), and poor service levels (55 percent). This contributes to high digital product churn rates (+40 percent depending on the product) and low satisfaction scores given to current providers.”

    “Many smaller sized businesses have tried to go the Do-It-Yourself route leveraging their can-do spirit,” he writes. “However, they are falling short in a number of areas as well. Only, 55% have websites and those that do have websites don’t have mobile optimized ones (40% percent). Only 31% have a strategy to attract the mobile consumer and those that manage their own websites update them infrequently (58% percent every six months or more). This further illustrates the fact they need help as well.”

    The report finds that 51% of small business owners have a positive outlook on their business for the year, and 31% are willing to increase budgets and invest in digital solutions if it makes sense for their business.

    The biggest areas of anticipated growth are company websites, social media, mobile advertising, display ads, paid search, SEO, online video, and email marketing. Most of the categories with less anticipated growth are offline channels like yellow pages, radio, magazine ads, TV, newspapers, and outdoor advertising.

    You can find the report here.

    We recently looked at findings from BrightLocal, which found that smaller businesses are more afraid of increasing their online budgets compared to those with larger headcounts. Here’s a look at company size vs. planned spend on internet marketing in 2015 from that:

    “From further analysis we can see that larger organizations are more bullish about increasing their online spend, while smaller (which make up the majority of our respondents), are less assertive,” said BrightLocal’s Ross Marchant at the time. “Not only is there a higher sense of uncertainty in the group, but there are far more who confidently say they will not increase their online marketing spend.

    eMarketer is pointing to recent polling by Ebiquity for American Express OPEN, which despite Thrive’s findings that social is ranked as the second most effective marketing method, found that small businesses haven’t increased their social presences over the past year:

    Businesses not utilizing Facebook more might be missing out on some serious clicks, as research from Nanigans we looked at earlier shows CTRs have jumped 260% over the past years as businesses take more advantage of video and multi-product ads. More on all of that here.

    Is your business struggling with online marketing because of time and/or a lack of resources? Do you expect things to improve in the near future? Let us know in the comments.

    Images via Thrive Analytics, BrightLocal, eMarketer

  • Franchise SMBs To Spend 1/2 Of 2015 Ad Budgets Online

    Franchise small and midsize businesses plan to spend about half of their annual ad budgets on digital, according to a new report from BIA/Kelsey. It found that these businesses, on average, spent $87,165 on advertising and promotion during the 12 months ahead of the survey, which is up from $57,072 the year prior. On average, they spent 39.1% of their total ad budgets on digital media during that time.

    Those same businesses said they intend to increase their digital spend to 42.9% of their total ad budget during the 12 months following the survey, which compares to 33.8% for SMBs overall.

    “Franchises are one of the most distinctive SMB segments,” said Steve Marshall, director of research, BIA/Kelsey. “In almost every metric, franchises act differently from the overall SMB sample. In general, franchises are taking a tighter and more disciplined approach to their customer relationships. They’re using more marketing tools and platforms, loyalty programs and social media.”

    BIA/Kelsey says the the businesses it surveyed “demonstrate a remarkable willingness to experiment” with digital media and platforms. When it comes to social, 26.4% use Twitter, 24.6% use Twitter ads, 15.7% use Instagram, and 11.5% use Pinterest.

    The Twitter numbers are interesting. Earlier this month, Twitter announced a new ad offering aimed at SMBs called “Quick Promote,” which lets them promote their best performing tweets from the Tweet activity dashboard.

    “Promoting a Tweet takes just a few clicks and your Tweet will automatically be targeted to users who have interests similar to your followers — the audience that is most likely to be interested in your message,” said product manager Buster Benson. “Whether you’re Tweeting about a new product, promotion or blog post, Promoted Tweets can help you drive measurable business results. In fact, we found that users who see a relevant Promoted Tweet from an SMB are also 32% more likely to visit that business.”

    If you’re a small to midsize business just getting started on Instagram, Gary Jordan of TheInstagramExpert.com recently shared some thoughts on that with us here. On the subject of Pinterest, we also spoke with with longtime Pinterest marketer Vincent Ng, and got some great tips about that.

    2.6% of those franchise SMBs surveyed by BIA/Kelsey use mobile banner or display ads, while 21.6% use mobile deals, and 19.3% use text messaging. 23.6% use online deals, while 22.6% use website video, and 16.3% use video banner or display ads.

    “Many franchise SMBs work with digital or advertising agencies, with 49.3 percent reporting they have worked with an agency for two years or more,” the firm says. “Among those that work with an agency, 87.7 percent are either ‘very satisfied’ or ‘extremely satisfied.’ The most widely used channel by franchise SMBs for purchasing online advertising is their advertising/digital agency (36.5 percent), followed by TV stations (28.9 percent), self serve without assistance (28.2 percent), self serve with assistance (27.9 percent) and newspapers (26.9 percent).”

    Take a look at this infographic they put together illustrating some of the survey’s findings:

    We recently looked at another study by BrightLocal, which found that despite finding online marketing effective, half of SMBs allocate less than 30% of their marketing budgets to online channels.

    “I found this figure a little perplexing when you consider the other responses SMBs gave,” BrightLocal CEO Myles Anderson told us in an interview. “75% said online was effective at bringing in new customers & 3 of top 4 most effective marketing channels are ‘digital’. Yet SMBs allocate a disproportionately low % of their marketing budgets online.”

    That study also found that there is a direct correlation between the number of employees the business has and the monthly online marketing budget. Here’s a look at company size vs. planned spend on internet marketing for this year:

    On Tuesday, Facebook announced that it now has over 2 million active advertisers, building on its 30 million businesses using Pages. It also launched a new Ads Manager mobile app, which will help businesses manage their budgeting from their phones (iPhone only for now, Android coming later this year).

    Facebook has not been incredibly kind to small business online marketing budgets over the past year or so. What businesses were once able to get for free, they’re now having to pay for more and more.

    We recently talked about this with Facebook marketing expert Mari Smith, who told us, “I would recommend that low budget[s] be allocated to what are called ‘dark posts.’ That is, ads in the News Feed that look like a Page wall post, but don’t actually appear on the Page. With very granular targeting to reach the exact target market, small businesses can do exceptionally well using Facebook. In addition, making use of custom audiences is a must. This is where a business can upload its own email database, or segments thereof, and place ads in the News Feed to that target group. Plus, using website custom audiences helps a business to retarget its website visitors with Facebook ads.”

    “Being able to boost (and target) posts that are already performing well is a great help to small businesses,” James Whatley, the social media director at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, London, recently told us in another interview. “The SMEs we work with tend to put aside a small ‘slush fund’ of media spend to work into their social channels as when these opportunities arise. Definitely worth doing.”

    Here’s more on how SMBs can deal with Facebook’s recent News Feed changes.

    Image via BIA/Kelsey

  • Smaller SMBs More Afraid Of Increasing Online Marketing Budgets

    Smaller SMBs More Afraid Of Increasing Online Marketing Budgets

    Last month, BrightLocal released some research looking at SMBs’ marketing strategies and budgets. It found that 34% of respondents allocate less than 10% of their marketing budgets to online channels while 50% allocate less than 30% and only 29% allocate over 70%.

    We spoke with BrightLocal CEO Myles Anderson about some of the study’s findings. He told us, “I found this figure a little perplexing when you consider the other responses SMBs gave. 75% said online was effective at bringing in new customers & 3 of top 4 most effective marketing channels are ‘digital’. Yet SMBs allocate a disproportionately low % of their marketing budgets online. I believe the reason is a combination of a few factors.”

    “Many business owners handle it themselves so don’t assign a monetary budget to online marketing,” he said. “The survey showed that 64% of business owners handle their internet marketing themselves. Online marketing isn’t applicable or doesn’t work for some businesses so they don’t invest. Some businesses rely solely on Word of Mouth to bring in new customers so don’t invest in online. Budgets are too low to play in the online arena.”

    BrightLocal has since come out with some follow-up research taking a closer look at data and comparing responses based on the size of the SMBs that took part in the survey. It found, for one, that there is a direct correlation between the number of employees the business has and the monthly marketing budget.

    Here’s a look at company size vs. planned spend on internet marketing for 2015:

    “From further analysis we can see that larger organizations are more bullish about increasing their online spend, while smaller (which make up the majority of our respondents), are less assertive,” writes BrightLocal’s Ross Marchant. “Not only is there a higher sense of uncertainty in the group, but there are far more who confidently say they will not increase their online marketing spend.

    “The question is whether the increased uncertainty comes from external factors affecting their future planning, or whether they simply don’t feel that the ROI from internet marketing is adequate enough,” he adds.

    While 94% of SMBs with 50+ employees say internet marketing is “effective” or “very effective,” 30% of those running the business on their own say it’s simply ‘not effective’. When you have to do everything, it’s not hard to understand why that might be.

    Image via BrightLocal

  • Twitter Advertising Just Got Easier For SMBs

    Twitter just announced a new ad offering aimed at small and medium-sized businesses. It’s called Quick Promote, and lets advertisers promote their best performing tweets from the Tweet Activity dashboard.

    “Since we launched our self-service ad platform in 2013, we’ve developed a range of products to help SMBs accomplish their marketing goals,” says product manager Buster Benson. “Last year, we rolled out objective-based campaigns, reports and pricing to make it simpler for businesses to manage campaigns, while only paying for actions aligned with their marketing objectives. And in July, we made organic Tweet analytics available to help advertisers of all sizes improve their content strategy.”

    “Promoting a Tweet takes just a few clicks and your Tweet will automatically be targeted to users who have interests similar to your followers — the audience that is most likely to be interested in your message,” Benson says. “Whether you’re Tweeting about a new product, promotion or blog post, Promoted Tweets can help you drive measurable business results. In fact, we found that users who see a relevant Promoted Tweet from an SMB are also 32% more likely to visit that business.”

    To use Quick Promote, log into the Tweet Activity dashboard, select the tweet you wish to promote, and chose a budget. Twitter will give you an estimate of the reach you’ll see after you promote the tweet. It also enables you to watch engagement with the tweet in real-time.

    The new feature is available to all SMB advertisers.

    Earlier this week, Twitter announced Promoted Tweet syndication, which sees Promoted Tweets from advertisers appear on third-party websites like Flipboard and Yahoo Japan (with more to come).

    Image via YouTube

  • How SMBs Can Deal With Facebook’s News Feed Changes

    In November, Facebook warned businesses that more change was coming to its News Feed algorithm in January. This followed about a year of steady organic Page post reach decline for many of them.

    The new changes demote posts Facebook deems too promotional. A lot of businesses feel a bit screwed by this as people often like their pages because they’re interested in seeing that kind of stuff.

    Do you think SMBs are getting the short end of the stick with Facebook’s changes? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    These are examples that Facebook used to illustrate the type of content it is referring to:

    We spoke with Branndon Stewart, founder and CEO of online marketing firm OutboundEngine, about what the changes really mean for SMBs.

    “It will become harder for SMBs to earn space in their customers’ news feeds, and they may have to pay to reach the same number of people that they used to be able to reach for free,” Stewart tells WebProNews. “But, it also means that when businesses do successfully land in the news feed, they’ll have less competition and a greater share of the audience’s attention. This change is important for the overall health of the Facebook ecosystem–a relevant and uncluttered news feed keeps users coming back. SMBs may not like the change, but the alternative is that users abandon Facebook and flock to the next social network, meaning yet another web property for business owners to manage.”

    Using Facebook effectively in light of the News Feed changes

    “The most important thing a business owner can do to be successful on Facebook is share great content that followers find valuable,” says Stewart. “That means a mix of original content, links to interesting third-party content, and meaningful offers from the business. Businesses shouldn’t be posting the same thing over and over, and they certainly shouldn’t be constantly selling at their audience.”

    “Don’t forget that Facebook is a highly visual medium, so content should have a high level of professional polish–users expect to see beautiful photography and thoughtful design,” he adds. “Finally, SMBs shouldn’t overlook Facebook’s paid advertising platform. The costs are still reasonable (unlike Adwords), and the ability to target your message is unparalleled. The number of options available in the platform can be overwhelming, but business owners who take the time to understand it will find a big opportunity to get ahead of their competitors.”

    As we learned from a new BrightLocal study, SMBs aren’t exactly shelling out a ton of money for their online marketing, and there are channels to consider beyond Facebook.

    Is it still possible to reap significant marketing benefits from Facebook without paying?

    “I view Facebook as table stakes for any business in 2015, like a website became in the late 90s,” says Stewart. “If a potential customer is researching a company or product, they’re highly likely to review the brand’s Facebook page, and if there’s nothing there, the brand sacrifices credibility. Even when customers want to limit brands’ presence in their news feeds, when they visit their Facebook business pages, they expect a robust experience full of engaging content. So while the upside of non-paid Facebook marketing may have peaked, the downside of not having well-maintained social profiles only continues to grow.”

    This somewhat echoes comments Facebook made itself when discussing the News Feed changes.

    “We know this change might raise questions about Pages and their role,” the company wrote in a blog post. “Pages still matter — a lot. They offer a free, easy-to-maintain online presence for people to discover and learn about a business. They work across desktop, mobile and tablets without requiring any extra configuration, and contain complete information about a business. They also offer tools to create videos, photos and events that bring a business’ story to life.”

    “What many businesses may not realize is that Pages are an important destination for their current and potential customers,” Facebook said. “In October, for instance, nearly a billion people visited Facebook Pages. Of those visits, more than 750 million happened on mobile devices. Many businesses also use Pages as a customer service channel. Businesses should think about their Page as a cornerstone of their online identity, not simply as a publishing service. The businesses that are doing this well understand the discovery and communication that happens when people come to their Page.”

    Is video on Facebook a must at this point? How can SMBs get the most out of Facebook videos?

    Facebook has recently been touting its growth as a video provider. It says it’s increasingly seeing a shift towards visual content, especially with video, and that in just a year, the number of video posts per person has increased 75% globally and 94% in the U.S. Because of this, it says, the composition of News Feed is changing. The amount of video from people and brands in News Feed has increased 3.6x globally year-over-year. Since June, Facebook has averaged over a billion video views a day, and on average, over 50% of people who come to Facebook ever y day in the U.S. watch at least one video daily. 76% of people in the U.S. say they tend to discover the videos they do watch on Facebook.

    Native Facebook video has actually become more popular than YouTube for posting videos to the social network as far as brands are concerned. According to a recent report from SocialBakers, brands on Facebook posted 20,000 more Facebook videos than YouTube videos last month.

    “I think it’s too early to call Facebook video a ‘must,’ and I always caution businesses against blindly chasing after every single internet marketing trend because they often don’t have the resources to execute well,” says Stewart. “Think of videos you’ve had a meaningful engagement with on Facebook. Is your business capable of delivering something similar? Or are you going to try to shoehorn in whatever video you happen to have laying around, or, worse, spend resources shooting a new video that delivers no value to your audience?”

    “Facebook users and Facebook itself have high expectations for content quality, and video is often the hardest/most expensive content to deliver,” he adds. “If you can’t commit the resources to doing it right, you’ll get better results with other forms of content.”

    How can businesses effectively use Facebook’s new call-to-action feature?

    Facebook recently gave businesses a new call-to-action feature, enabling them to include buttons on posts that let them encourage fans to take specific actions.

    “One of the most basic concepts in online marketing is the funnel – what do you want a customer to do, and what steps to they need to take to get there?” says Stewart. “Facebook usually sits toward the top of the funnel, when potential customers are researching your business to decide if they like you, and those buttons are designed to get people to the next step.”

    “If the calls to action make sense for your business (e.g. ‘Shop Now’ is a natural fit if you’re in ecommerce), then by all means give them a shot,” he says. “But put thought into what happens at the next stage of the funnel. For example, don’t send people who click ‘Shop Now’ to your home page, point them directly into your store instead. The same goes for the ‘Contact Us’ button – send them directly to a page with a prominent form so they have clear direction about what to do next. The golden rule is: when you ask a customer to take an action, make it seamless.”

    Facebook may have made a lot of changes that haven’t been very kind to Pages, but recently it has also made some that could give businesses new opportunities. They may not directly make up for the lost organic reach, but there are new tools to work with, and Facebook is still a behemoth when it comes to referrals to websites.

    Are you concerned about Facebook’s News Feed changes? Please discuss.

    Images via Facebook, SocialBakers

  • Why Aren’t SMBs Investing More In Online Marketing?

    Why Aren’t SMBs Investing More In Online Marketing?

    Local SEO firm BrightLocal recently released some findings from its annual SMB Internet Marketing Survey. These revealed that plenty of small and midsize businesses find online marketing effective, and plan to spend more on it in the future, yet a surprising number of them are dedicating pretty small amounts of money to it.

    What do you think is holding back SMB online marketing budgets? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    We sent some questions over to BrightLocal CEO Myles Anderson to gain a little bit more perspective into how SMBs are approaching online marketing.

    According to the study, 34% allocate less than 10% of their marketing budget to online channels, while 50% allocate less than 30% and only 29% allocate over 70%.

    Why is there so little going to online channels?

    “I found this figure a little perplexing when you consider the other responses SMBs gave,” Anderson tells WebProNews. “75% said online was effective at bringing in new customers & 3 of top 4 most effective marketing channels are ‘digital’. Yet SMBs allocate a disproportionately low % of their marketing budgets online. I believe the reason is a combination of a few factors.”

    “Many business owners handle it themselves so don’t assign a monetary budget to online marketing,” he says. “The survey showed that 64% of business owners handle their internet marketing themselves. Online marketing isn’t applicable or doesn’t work for some businesses so they don’t invest. Some businesses rely solely on Word of Mouth to bring in new customers so don’t invest in online. Budgets are too low to play in the online arena.”

    Should SMBs be allocating more of their budgets to online channels?

    “Considering that 75% of respondents said that online marketing was effective I would expect a larger slice of budgets to be allocated to online channels,” Anderson says. “However many business owners seem prepared to handle their online marketing themselves. Many of the most effective marketing channels can be effectively used for free – it only takes time & knowledge to do it right and drive customers through to your business.”

    “These 2 aspects combined mean that big investment in online marketing isn’t always needed,” he adds. “However local online marketing isn’t for the faint hearted. The vast array of options & constant change in best practices & guidelines make it hard to stay on top of unless you have the time & skills to invest in understanding it.”

    The rise of mobile opens up a lot of opportunity for online marketing for SMBs that wasn’t so prevalent before smartphones.

    Is a lack of understanding holding back budgets in mobile?

    “The number of searches done using a mobile device now outstrips those done on a PC,” says Anderson. “This is significant because the nature & intent of mobile-based searches is more ‘local’ than on PCs so local business websites & listings will be surfaced in the results for more search terms. Google uses searcher location as a big factor in determining which results it returns so optimization for mobile & also for your town/city/neighbourhood are more important then ever. Not all businesses will drive new customers from mobile searchers. Mobile searches are less ‘discovery’ orientated so services that require greater information & consideration prior to purchase (e.g. dentists, plastic surgeon, attorneys) won’t see much conversion from mobile. But that shouldn’t stop them optimizing for local and establishing brand presence with local customers.”

    “So, I think most businesses owners are aware that mobile usage is growing. But many may not perceive that it’s relevant to them or justified in allocating budget to it vs. other tried & tested channels that they know deliver new customers.”

    Based on the survey data, a significant amount of businesses are planning to spend more on online marketing.

    Which channels (search, social, email, etc.) will benefit the most?

    “I think they’ll see an uplift as businesses & marketeers look to pull in customers from many sources,” says Anderson. “Having a diversified marketing strategy is wise as you don’t become reliant on 1-2 channels to deliver everything. Many businesses are too reliant on Google/Google Places to generate site traffic & calls. This leaves them vulnerable to algo updates or guideline changes which can literally switch off their pipeline of customers.”

    The research shows that businesses consider phone calls to be the most valued success metric compared to web traffic, search rankings, and significantly over customers actually walking through the door or inquiring via the website.

    Why are phone calls so highly valued compared to other metrics?

    “Firstly there are many local businesses that don’t cater to walk-in customers (e.g. gardeners, plumbers, accountants, therapists, mobile-masseuses) but they all have a phone,” Anderson says. “Secondly, calls convert better than online enquiries. Customers are more engaged (they’ve taken the time to call) and a business has a greater opportunity to understand the customer’s need and propose the best solution for them. Thirdly, speaking to a customer on the phone is often cheaper than dealing with customers in-location. So if you can pre-qualify/pre-sell a customer on the phone then it’s a lower cost per sale.”

    Do you expect to increase your online marketing budget this year? Let us know.

  • Report: Big-Spending SMBs Prioritize Search

    Search engine marketing is the top digital marketing priority for most higher-spending small and medium-sized businesses, according to anew report from BIA/Kelsey. These are businesses spending over $25,000 a year on advertising and promotion. On average, they’re spending $79,000.

    60.6% rated search advertising and marketing (including SEO) as an “extremely high” or “very high” priority for the coming twelve months. 20.7% reported using PPC advertising in the previous 12 months, compared to 19.6% in 2013.

    “The LCM [Local Commerce Monitor – the study] findings indicate small businesses want to improve on the ability for consumers to discover them,” said Steve Marshall, director of research, at BIA/Kelsey. “SEM, SEO, and pay per click are fundamental to achieving this goal, particularly with the growth of mobile search.”

    According to the firm, local search revenues are expected to reach $7.2 billion in 2015, which would be up from $7.1 billion this year. It maintains that local mobile search will account for 51.1% of mobile ad spending in 2015.

    The LCM recently found that small businesses spend more on social media than any other media category with Facebook dominating at 55.1% of SMBs reporting they have Pages.

    BIA/Kelsey will release additional findings at an upcoming local media conference in December.

    Image via BIA/Kelsey