Small Businesses - How Much Money And Time Do They Spend On Social Media?

Many small businesses have already experienced the benefits of social media and have started actively engaging with current and potential customers. A new research by VerticalResponse discovered that there's been an increase in investment and efforts in social media marketing by smaller organisations, however they still struggle with the workload and the lack of time.

VerticalResponse conducted a survey with almost 500 small-business owners to find out how much money and time they spend on social media. Here's what they found:

43% of small businesses spend 6 or more hours weekly on social media, 7% spend more than 21 hours a week.
66% of surveyed businesses are spending more time on social media this year in comparison to 2011.
90% of small companies are on Facebook, 70% on Twitter and 50% on LinkedIn.
55% of small businesses have a blog with 43% publishing a blog post at least once a week.
1/3 of CEOs/owners want to spend less time on social media and focus on growing their business instead.
1/3 of small companies post on social networks every day; 32% post on Facebook at least once a day and 29% tweet at least once daily.
Finding and posting content is the most time-consuming activity.
Small businesses are spending more on social media at a faster rate than the overall marketing budget – 22% have increased their social media spending compared to a year ago.
To publish and analyse their activities 36% of small businesses pay for such services with 57.5% spending $26 a month for it.

The four main conclusions after analysing all data were:

Smaller organisations now spend more time on social media, but still struggle with the added workload;
They focus primarily on Facebook and Twitter, but haven’t adopted Pinterest or Google+ as quickly;
Companies realise the value of content, but still struggle to find time;
Small businesses find value in paying for social media tools.

It’s good to see that smaller organisations have increased their budgets, time and energy they spend on social media; it means they understand the value of social media. This only speaks about the growing importance of utilising online platforms over other marketing activities.

However, one of the biggest challenges that small businesses face is finding time for it on top of all other company responsibilities. This implies that smaller organisations will increasingly need help with developing effective social media strategies, identifying the right tactics and employing the appropriate implementation tools. Therefore, the need for consultancies will grow, but will small businesses have the budgets to invest in hiring such services?

Here’s the supporting infographic that illustrates the findings:

(Click on the infographic for a larger view)