{"id":13982,"date":"2012-12-12T06:00:15","date_gmt":"2012-12-12T10:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=13982"},"modified":"2025-12-03T12:22:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:22:44","slug":"the-disconnect-between-what-smbs-use-facebook-for-and-what-consumers-use-it-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2012\/12\/12\/the-disconnect-between-what-smbs-use-facebook-for-and-what-consumers-use-it-for\/","title":{"rendered":"The Disconnect Between What SMBs Use Facebook For and What Consumers Use it For"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week at Kelsey it was reported<\/a> that an “astounding 41.7% of SMBs surveyed by BIA\/Kelsey say they see Facebook most importantly as an acquisition tool”. Astounding is right. That is a huge disconnect with reality.<\/p>\n

My recent survey of\u00a0how consumers find lawyers<\/a> tallied that 2.1% of the US adult internet users would start their search at their favorite social network. 32.7% indicated that they would start their search at a search engine or elsewhere on the internet. In other words a consumer looking for a lawyer is almost 16 times as likely to start their internet search for a specialty lawyer anyplace BUT Facebook. They indicated that they were 5 times as likely to start their search in the printed Yellow Pages than on their favorite social network. Granted this is lawyers but it is likely that these percentages hold roughly true for other industry segments as well. We have seen a similar disconnect at our Local University presentations where SMB attendees have reported that\u00a068% Have Facebook Pages but only 28% have claimed their Google Places Listing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Facebook is an incredible platform for retention, community building, awareness but I see this huge disconnect amongst SMBs that think that it is prime territory for client acquisition. If any of you have clients that have missed this critical point, I am reprinting last week’s graph sideways so that it is more obvious. (The number on the far right is Facebook.)<\/p>\n

\"facebook-arrow\"<\/p>\n

This disconnect could actually lead to annoyed customers rather than new customers. Facebook is social. Direct customer acquisition activities is just the opposite. My wife said to me the other day that she DID NOT want her lawyer, doctor or dentist interacting with her in that environment. Certainly there are some business types that she wouldn’t mind interacting with, for example the local cupcake bakery, but even there interacting needs to be more social than anything. I don’t think her atypical. I think Facebook runs a grave risk of losing their core users if client acquisition becomes the standard operating mode there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week at Kelsey it was reported that an “astounding 41.7% of SMBs surveyed by BIA\/Kelsey say they see Facebook most importantly as an acquisition tool”. Astounding is right. That is a huge disconnect with reality. My recent survey of\u00a0how consumers find lawyers tallied that 2.1% of the US adult internet users would start their …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":22307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-local-social"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t