As part of the ritual of examining local commerce and SMB Saas strategies, Localogy goes right to the source: SMBs themselves. How do they feel about marketing and operational software? What features do they want? And how has their hunger changed in a pandemic?
Localogy’s latest Pro Perspectives report dives into the social media aspects of the above questions. Entitled, Pro Perspectives: Social is Here to Stay, it examines original SMB sentiments and behavior for social media marketing. We dive in for this week’s Benchmark Bytes.
Specifically, after examining SMBs aspirational plans for their paid social media budgets, we shift gears this week to examine new social channels they’d like to try in 2022. Among the 54 percent of SMBs that expressed interest in trying a new paid social channel, which apps are they most interested in?
On this measure, Instagram and YouTube come out on top with 12 percent of SMBs saying they plan to try these channels for paid social marketing. These are followed by Pinterest (10 percent), Twitter (10 percent), Facebook (9 percent), Snapchat (8 percent), blogs (5 percent) and TikTok (4 percent).
Localogy members can access full charts and SMB survey reports. Non-members can purchase reports.
What Does it All Mean?
Going a bit deeper, a few things jump out at us:
– These results are further evidence of Meta’s strong positioning in the SMB marketing world.
– Not only do Facebook and Instagram hold leading market shares in SMB paid social spending, but the above aspirational results signal their growth going forward.
– This puts Instagram especially in an advantageous spot in the SMB marketing competitive landscape.
– YouTube likewise scored well, likely due to how well exposed the channel is for SMB-fare such as how-to videos.
– Though Instagram and YouTube tied for the top spot, if you add up Meta properties on this list (Facebook and Instagram) it has a dominating lead with 21 percent of SMB responses.
– Similar to last week’s results, these figures bode well for Facebook despite media attention and doomsday characterization of the company.
– This is further evidence that the media’s schadenfreude coverage of Facebook isn’t translating to an exodus of advertisers, especially among SMBs. They’re largely insulated from the tech news cycle.
– Beyond that insulation, Facebook’s continued maneuvering and branding (e.g. Meta) could further propagate goodwill among SMBs. This includes the positive associations with its other brands such as WhatsApp and Instagram.
– Instagram is especially insulated from Facebook’s PR challenges, as many SMBs don’t immediately associate the app with Facebook. It’s leading position in the above aspirational sentiments supports this.
Time to Shine
Stepping back, SMB online marketing – social or otherwise – continues to grow rapidly. SMB SaaS startups and online services providers are correspondingly thriving as it continues to grow as a leading subsector of the broader SaaS universe.
Meanwhile, new SMB SaaS users could represent permanent adopters – a concept that’s accelerated in the Covid era as SMBs are forced to boost their digital transformation. This sends them into the arms of SaaS providers to accomplish a range of marketing functions.
We’ll return in the next installment to go deeper on SMB social marketing behavior. That will include their goals and success factors. Let us know what additional insights jump out at you from the above data, and stay tuned for more breakdowns in our Benchmark Bytes series.
