(Rock Hill, SC) – A recent survey of small businesses, most of them in York County, SC, by the Mayoros Agency confirms local businesses are slowly getting on board the social media band wagon. While personal use of social media sites is now widespread in the United States, small businesses have been slower to adopt the medium as a way to promote their companies. 40% of respondents to The Mayoros Agency’s social media survey reported their companies have no social media presence. Respondents not participating in social media marketing reported a wide range of reasons, but most commonly cited time consumption as a leading deterrent. However, among those using social media marketing, most spent only one to five hours per month. Small businesses overwhelmingly agreed they plan to increase their social media presence in the next year. “Many of these businesses find the time required to monitor social media is a big road block because often they have no dedicated marketing professional and that usually leaves the overly busy owner as the person responsible,” said Heather Mayoros, President of the Mayoros Agency. “Business owners have a couple of options,” said Mayoros, “they can either assign a trusted employee to manage the company’s social media presence or another cost effective solution could be hiring a local advertising agency to monitor social media accounts for them.”
Small businesses were using a wide mix of social media platforms and were unsure if any one platform was outperforming the others in terms of return on investment. One other interesting finding from the survey is that promotional messages often cross the personal/business border on social media platforms, as half of all respondents reported using personal accounts, often in tandem with business accounts, to promote their businesses.