Small Businesses Taking Steps Toward Online Networking
By choice or necessity, successful small-business owners are earnest networkers, gladly shaking hands, handing out cards and attending local meetings to find and keep customers, solve problems, seek feedback or support and bolster their bottom lines.
Now, the Internet is starting to upend those long-established methods; online networking on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and newer niche sites can be instantaneous and far-reaching.
The sites are efficient and free, which is especially important in an economic downturn, as owners scramble for new customers, said Rob King, vice president for strategic marketing at Sage North America, a unit of Sage PLC, a global supplier of business management software and services.
A recent study for Sage North America found that 65 percent of small businesses that used social networking sites said that they felt more comfortable doing so this year than they did last year, and 51 percent said that they had acquired and retained customers because of it.
More than 260,000 North American businesses currently use social networking to promote their businesses, King said.
In April, Sage, which has 2.9 million small and midsize business customers, introduced its own networking site, SageSpark.com. “We know we’re not the first to the game,” King said. “Our twist really is the community, tools and services.”
Other niche sites have sprouted recently, like Shustir.com. Last week, Shustir.com introduced its virtual marketplace, which was started by two former Lehman Brothers colleagues, Shu Kim and Khanh Pham. “It matters where you spend,” Kim said, echoing the site’s catchphrase. The goal, they said, is to keep Main Street U.S.A. alive.
“We want you to spend with small businesses,” Pham said. “By doing so, 80 percent of the money goes directly back to the community.”
The site is arranged so owners can create virtual storefronts with photos, video, blogs and store information, and communicate with customers.
PartnerUp has been around longer. It is a social networking site that helps entrepreneurs and small-businesses owners find partners or co-founders, network, ask for and offer up advice, find resources and create or join groups based on their interests. It was founded in 2005 and acquired by the Deluxe Corp. in 2008.
PartnerUp has more than 100,000 active members, and more than 300,000 unique business owners and entrepreneurs come to the site every month, according to Steve Nielsen, its president.
What’s more, when asked which networking opportunities they used most, 46 percent of small-business owners identified traditional methods like conferences, trade shows, local in-person groups or chambers of commerce. Of the remaining respondents, 16 percent cited “other” networking opportunities, 8 percent cited online sites, 7 percent said e-mail messages and 22 percent said they were not sure.
King of Sage North America estimates that small businesses have a 12-month window to figure out online social networking.