Sometimes I feel like I’m living a slightly schizophrenic life. As a marketing consultant specializing in social media, I spend a large chuck of my life immersed in the online 
World. I’m connecting with other online experts, and using each of the tools. I’m looking at how other businesses are marketing themselves online. I’m online for hours a day. And even when I’m not talking to other marketing experts, I’m dealing with online business people who know what they’re doing.
But occasionally I need to get off my ass and actually leave my office. When talking to business owners in the real world, I see an entirely different perspective. In the last several weeks I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with business owners were still trying to decide whether or not they need to bother with a website, never mind things like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
These two extremes in my life, have got me to thinking. One of the big rallying cries around social media is that it levels the playing field. Because most of these tools are basically free (as in no cash is needed to use them) it meant that solopreneurs and small business owners could easily compete with large corporations.
And on the surface this is true. After all, we can all create a Facebook account and set up a fan page, but only major corporations can run a television spot during the Superbowl.
However, when we dig deeper I believe social media is actually widening the gap between large corporations and micro business.
Why?
I really think it’s the pace of change that is causing the problems. Things are changing so rapidly in the online world that it’s hard for someone like me to keep up. But small business owners don’t have ten, twenty, or more hours a week to devote to learning about these new tools and ensuring that they’re using them properly.
I’m hearing it every day. People telling me they know they need their business to be on Facebook but they don’t know where to start. They don’t have time to learn the ins and outs of online marketing.
Large corporations have a marketing budget. In fact they have an entire marketing department. They can afford to have someone like me (or lots of someone’s) on staff working full time on their social media marketing strategy.
Yes there was a short period of time where solopreneurs had the edge over large corporations because they could make the decision to get online sooner. But now that corporations have jumped on the bandwagon, the gap is widening again.
Corporations are producing polished, and entertaining online videos. Their Facebook fan pages are flashy, and updated constantly. Corporations are tweeting up a storm. Many of them have multiple people engaging with their customers in the online world, and some of them are doing it really well.
In a world where small local businesses with niche markets are competing with global brands; where Amazon can get their products into the hands of customers more easily than driving to a neighborhood store, can small businesses really afford to ignore these marketing tools?
Andrea J. Stenberg
What do you think? Is a case of change causing large corporations to leave small business in the online dust? Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.
