Will Social Media Help or Hinder your Business Success?

Now that social media platforms are recognised, not only as opportunities to collect customer data, but also for a super-fast way to spread the word wide about brands and products, how much of your marketing budget will you allocate to social media in 2013? According to some recent global research carried out by Pitney Bowes Software, many businesses in Australia, France, Germany, the UK and the USA are planning to spend about half of their budgets that way.

Is Social Media Helping you?

But those in Australia and the US are ahead of their European counterparts in monitoring the success of their social media strategies. Whilst it may be difficult to get the figures to calculate the actual return on your social media investment, it is easier to find out an engagement rate for your posts by counting numbers of likes, shares and comments as well as fans. Perhaps your outsourced bookkeepers can help with this.

Avoiding a Social Media Backlash

Social media can not only enhance reputations, it can also destroy them. The Pitney Bowes report also indicates that if you upset your audience on Facebook and the like, you’re likely to lose 65% of them. Facebook is still the most used social media network, and is way ahead of its rivals.

It has never been more important to get customer service right. Anyone dealing with marketing should liaise with people and teams dealing with customer service, especially on the complaints side of things. When people call in, you need to catch potential issues before they get on to social media if you want to protect your brand and retain customers. Get any complaints dealt with quickly and give the complainers a positive experience to relate to their social media buddies. It’s also crucial that everyone in your business understands how to use social media and, perhaps even more important, how they should not use it, especially not bad mouthing your competition or anyone else.

What Consumers Respond to

The survey found that consumers respond best to discounts and vouchers for deals at below normal price. They are also interested in forthcoming events and sales. New product launches also get a fair amount of interest. They are less interested in reading newsletters or completing feedback forms and surveys, or even reading about a company’s social responsibility performance. It’s worth taking note of the findings so that you can alter your tactics to get more favourable attention.

Get into the Festive Spirit

It’s really hard for small business owners to take time off and really switch off from their businesses. That said, unless, you need a break as much as any employee. If you do have to work over the holidays, perhaps because you are in the hospitality sector or any other that requires attention 365 days a year, then you need to make up for it with time off afterwards. You need to get into the spirit of the season and be refreshed and ready for the challenges of a new year of business.

So how can you take time off without losing custom? Like most other things, success is all about planning and organising in advance.

Order Fulfilment

First you need to think about how to ensure that all your orders will be fulfilled before the holiday starts. Can you do it with your current staff numbers or do you need to arrange for any temporary workers? Don’t forget to allow a little extra time for those inevitable late orders that arrive just when you think it’s all finished.

Being Responsive

Next, it’s how to manage those all-important telephone calls and emails. To avoid putting prospective customers off with a voice-mail message, can you arrange for calls to be forwarded to another responsible person when you are not available? Hiring a virtual receptionist for a few days may be affordable and could pay for itself in retaining customers or acquiring new business. You could enquire with your outsourced bookkeepers whether that is a service they offer, or whether they know of a reliable source.

Whether or not someone else is fielding your calls, plan a specific hour for each day to check if you need to respond to messages left in the last 23 hours. Having this small window of time for work will make you feel more comfortable about not being available during the working day. The actual time may have to be a bit flexible to accommodate your family or leisure activities. When you do contact your callers, unless it’s a real emergency, don’t commit to anything that will interfere with your planned time off. People will understand if they are told you are on holiday and will get to it when you are back in the office, and they will appreciate you taking the time to inform them. Make a note in your diary of when everything is promised and make those promises a priority when you are back in harness.

Whatever methods you organise to cover your absence; do take our advice about having a break. Whether it is your custom to celebrate Christmas or any other religious festival, take some time off and enjoy it.

Crisis in Flood Insurance

If your business has been affected by flooding this year, you know that insurance is a lifeline, even though excess clause amounts have risen by an average of 1,750% in the last three years. But will you be able to renew it?

Insurers and Government Cooperation

The Statement of Principles is an agreement between government and the insurers to say that you will. This is in return for a pledge to spend on flood defences, although even some plans for these have been affected by recent cuts. The agreement is due to expire in June 2013.

The Association of Business Insurers (ABI) is currently in discussion with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) about what will replace it. The insurers propose a new fund to cover flood payments and keep premiums down to affordable levels. Property policy premiums would contribute a token amount of around £20 to help get it started, but it would also need what is described as an ‘overdraft facility’ from the government.

ABI requires the government to share the risk and says that we are the only country that does not have some form of government intervention on flood insurance. But DEFRA has not agreed to the overdraft facility, and if no deal can be reached, it is unlikely that affordable flood insurance will be available. Accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers estimate the insurance bill for flooding in June and November 2012 will top £1 billion.

As in so many areas, it seems inevitable that small businesses with limited resources have to be hit hardest? Sole traders working from a home on a flood plain have double the anxiety.

Ways to Reduce Flood Damage

The University of Salford’s Centre for Disaster Resilience thinks we rely too much on insurance, anyway. After a recent survey of small businesses in Cockermouth, their lead researcher, Dr Bingunath Ingirige said: “Climate change and rising insurance costs mean that SMEs need to begin investigating other ways to reduce the impact of flooding.”

The survey found that only very few had installed flood resilient wall finishes or moved vital equipment above the ground floor. Their survey report calls for businesses to consult trained professionals such as chartered surveyors, and to follow their recommendations for effective mitigation and prevention improvements to their properties.

If you are in a risk area, you should be considering whether you could divert or raise funds, and how much you could afford to invest in this type of protection. Your outsourced bookkeepers would be happy to discuss this with you and may have fund raising ideas you haven’t thought of.