Small Businesses Want to Sharpen Their Social Media Skills

In its State of Small Business survey, Verizon stated that 77% of "small to mid-sized businesses are currently using or planning to use social media marketing" to help them better engage with their customers.


It looks like Mom and Pop want to keep up with the big boys and are pushing to be more social to accomplish just that. We're not talking about Mom and Pop exactly, but we are talking about those smaller businesses that need to find a way to compete with the apex corporations that already know the value of schmoozing with the public.

The problem is that many of these smaller businesses don't have the finesse or the social skills to accomplish the task gracefully. That same Verizon survey we talked about at the beginning of the news says that 69% of small business owners believe free social media courses "would be helpful to pursue outside of office hours," and 61% believe their operations would benefit from chatting with e-commerce experts "well-versed in establishing digital presence and branding."

In short, a lot of them want help. These small and even mid-sized business owners feel like little fish in a big sea where the sharks are having their way with them.

Currently, about half of small business owners still see Facebook as the end-all-be-all for small business promotion. Almost half of the surveyed small business owners said that they started using or increased their usage of Facebook in the past year. Instagram was close behind, with "laggers" TikTok, X, and LinkedIn bringing up the rear in this parade of small business champs.

Small and mid-sized businesses need resources and expertise in social media marketing to increase their business presence and customer engagement. They need to learn social skills and social etiquette, especially as we head into a holiday season where the focus will be on both online and in-store traffic.

Small business owners want to learn. They want to grow. They want to run with the big boys and girls and learn to utilize social media platforms and sparkling new digital marketing technologies to target the right audience.

Basically, they want to not only survive they want to thrive.

So, the takeaway is that small businesses are begging for help, and if you've got a service or a product to offer, you can leverage this cry for help to not only help small businesses but to put some dollars in your bank account.

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