After eight years of trying it, we finally have the answer to the simple question “Is social media worth it”?
Is Social Media Worth It?
In a word – NO. When we first started the business and set up our website, we were told we HAD to do social media. We would fail miserably if we didn’t have a presence on all of the major social media platforms. We actually wrote about Social Media in a 2017 blog post. After being led down the path of being “social” to gain new customers, we were beginning to realize that was the case only if we advertised.
Small Business Doesn’t Have Deep Pockets
To no ones surprise, our small business does not have a large advertising budget. In fact, it would be $0 – zero – zippo – nada – nothing. We tried advertising early on in our business and found little or no success spending between $50 to $500. We tried print, Facebook advertising – you name it, we probably tried it. At least once. So we were left with the cheapo way of getting people to notice us.
But here’s what happened. Our loyal friends who would “Like” or Comment on product or social posts are really our friends. In most cases anyway. So it’s no surprise that we asked ourselves – Is Social Media Worth It? If you Google that question, the only ones who say “yes” are marketers. Go figure.
Our Solution – An Active Website
We find that Google likes us as long as we post new products two to three times a week. And put out a blog post at least once a month. And over the last year, who really has that much new information about what’s going on in your life. And we strive to create new search engine descriptions for our products each time we post one.
Work has slowed down during 2020. We don’t know if that’s because of Covid, increasing prices, or what. We have seen a slow uptick in orders in the last couple of months. Only time will tell whether it continues. People do, however, seem to find us when they Google custom metal art, signs, etc. We have many images that show up in a variety of search criteria for metal art.
Does that have anything to do with social media? NO.
Over the last several months, we have rarely posted products on social media. We maybe post something once a week on Facebook or Instagram. You will usually see beer, wine, snow, elk, deer and other wild life (or is that wildlife). At any rate we see that both of those platforms are inundated with ads to the point where people ignore most things. And, we are not going to waste our money on advertising.
We’ll Just Keep on Keeping On
So the bottom line for this story is this. Don’t expect to see many things on social media from us. The “nice day to have a beer” post is probably going to be more prevalent than “we’re working so hard” post. If you want to see what we’re up to, check out the most recent products on our home page. That gets updated on a regular basis.
We hope you all understand why we aren’t spending much time on social media. It’s become so divisive and cluttered in the last couple of years. We would just as soon work with our customers and create unique custom metal art for them. And keep social as social – not work.