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Why are business' not embracing the web/social media.

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  • 01-03-2014 12:50pm
    #1
    bizzyb
    Registered Users Posts: 356 ✭✭


    Decided to go out for dinner tonight with some friends, restaurants within a 10 mile radius are pretty poor but 2 we have been to in the past are decent enough so i said i would check out there menus online to decide where to go. The first both there website and Facebook page were last updated in 2011 and the other there Facebook page was last updated last September,we have decided to go elsewhere. Surely in the modern era social media is a huge tool to attract customers for these business' why the hell are the not using it!!


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    #2
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Personally I dislike using facebook. But I would look up a website.


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    #3
    Buttercake
    Registered Users Posts: 539 ✭✭✭Buttercake


    Time & Money, they don't have time to update social or have money to pay someone to do it. The likes of Crackbird, Dillingers etc have very Internet savvy owners who do it themselves and have opened new outlets, thanks in a large part, to social media.


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    #4
    jimmii
    Registered Users Posts: 14,810 ✭✭✭✭jimmii


    No idea why businesses don't put the time in. On FB its easy to set up a whole weeks worth of posts in an hour on a Monday and then just keep an eye on comments etc. Social Media is huge for us I would imagine we would be really struggling if we didn't have Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc they bring a lot of people to us.


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    #5
    bizzyb
    Registered Users Posts: 356 ✭✭bizzyb


    jimmii wrote: »
    No idea why businesses don't put the time in. On FB its easy to set up a whole weeks worth of posts in an hour on a Monday and then just keep an eye on comments etc. Social Media is huge for us I would imagine we would be really struggling if we didn't have Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc they bring a lot of people to us.

    My thought's exactly,Jimmii.As you say that hour per week could be the the difference in an extra 10 customers coming in the door.


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    #6
    jmcc
    Registered Users Posts: 7,411 ✭✭✭jmcc


    Because the real world is not online.

    Regards...jmcc


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    #7
    tricky D
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,700 ✭✭✭tricky D


    And then there's menus as PDFs only and/or out-of-date on menupages.


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    #8
    kkelliher
    Registered Users Posts: 1,583 ✭✭✭kkelliher


    Buttercake wrote: »
    Time & Money, they don't have time to update social

    I dont think any business can use this as an excuse as you have to have time to promote your business or it will struggle to survive


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    #9
    baby and crumble
    Registered Users Posts: 8,512 ✭✭✭baby and crumble


    jmcc wrote: »
    Because the real world is not online.

    Regards...jmcc

    That's a bit of a cop out. 20 year ago you'd be hard pressed to find a business who didn't have an add in the golden pages, or at least a listing. You can't afford to not have an active online presence today. Purely from a customers point of view, if I go looking for a restaurant and see they have no website, no FB, no twitter... I probably would find somewhere else. Especially if I'm on holidays and new to the area. I always Yelp places to eat when I'm way to find somewhere that looks decent- you can spend ages trawling around on holiday trying to find somewhere half decent. It may seem a bit like wasted time/ effort/ money but get it right and you're on the winning side.


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    #10
    tricky D
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,700 ✭✭✭tricky D


    The don't have time thing is a poor excuse. Most messages are going to be very similar, so a simple text file would cover 90% of the messages, a few quick copy and pastes is only a few minutes a week which might be less time than doing the boards for daily specials. Works just fine that way for my local and its food operation.


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    #11
    DubTony
    Registered Users Posts: 3,269 ✭✭✭DubTony


    bizzyb wrote: »
    Decided to go out for dinner tonight with some friends, restaurants within a 10 mile radius are pretty poor but 2 we have been to in the past are decent enough so i said i would check out there menus online to decide where to go. The first both there website and Facebook page were last updated in 2011 and the other there Facebook page was last updated last September,we have decided to go elsewhere. Surely in the modern era social media is a huge tool to attract customers for these business' why the hell are the not using it!!

    So you decided not to go to either restaurant because they hadn't updated their Facebook status or web site in 2 years. Maybe they didn't update those because were busy creating better and nicer dishes to serve to the customers who judge a restaurant on the quality of food and service.

    Personally I'd want to sit in the restaurant, choose my meal from the actual paper menu and enjoy the experience. Isn't that part of the deal? But then I'm on the wrong side of 40. Maybe it's all just gone over my head.


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    #12
    Yurple
    Registered Users Posts: 391 ✭✭Yurple


    I am currently having the same problem... i want to be on social media but to me it's such a time sink! Not only do I have to focus on not one but several social media platforms... the focus also has to be on creating unique, engaging messages that make it worthwhile reading them.... very annoying and very time consuming!

    If businesses do not have time to do it, how much would people willing to pay someone social media management company to do it for them monthly? What is a fair price? and do these companies exist?


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    #13
    jmcc
    Registered Users Posts: 7,411 ✭✭✭jmcc


    baby and crumble wrote: »
    That's a bit of a cop out. 20 year ago you'd be hard pressed to find a business who didn't have an add in the golden pages, or at least a listing. You can't afford to not have an active online presence today
    A lot of businesses do not have an active online presence and many that do have active websites tend to have brochureware websites that are left without being updated for up to or over a year. The web really is not as active and vibrant as the technology churnalists and others think. Most registered domain names have no active websites. However the one site that has the most outbound links from Irish websites is actually Facebook. (Twitter, Youtube, Linkedin and Pinterest are also heavily linked.)

    Regards...jmcc


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    #14
    Buttercake
    Registered Users Posts: 539 ✭✭✭Buttercake


    kkelliher wrote: »
    I dont think any business can use this as an excuse as you have to have time to promote your business or it will struggle to survive

    you could apply it to any business, if a gardener isn't on facebook is he missing out? if an accountant isn't on twitter?

    I think for some business owners its definitely not an excuse of not having the time, its when they do have the time they don't know how to use social.

    A lot of procrastination when it comes to some small business owners. Lots of 1-day courses or online materials, books guides etc.


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    #15
    pedronomix
    Closed Accounts Posts: 997 ✭✭✭pedronomix


    It makes sense to have at least the most basic business info out there on a website or Facebook page.
    However if I am looking at restaurants, what I want are decent 3rd party independent reviews and details of any awards won etc! I would never put any value in what someone writes about their own place on their page/ site!


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    #16
    bizzyb
    Registered Users Posts: 356 ✭✭bizzyb


    DubTony wrote: »
    So you decided not to go to either restaurant because they hadn't updated their Facebook status or web site in 2 years. Maybe they didn't update those because were busy creating better and nicer dishes to serve to the customers who judge a restaurant on the quality of food and service.

    Personally I'd want to sit in the restaurant, choose my meal from the actual paper menu and enjoy the experience. Isn't that part of the deal? But then I'm on the wrong side of 40. Maybe it's all just gone over my head.

    Where i decided to eat has no relevance to this thread, i was simply using it as an example that certain business not just the restaurant industry are not using social media which in my mind is a big negative to there business.


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    #17
    but43r
    Registered Users Posts: 539 ✭✭✭but43r


    Yurple wrote: »
    I am currently having the same problem... i want to be on social media but to me it's such a time sink! Not only do I have to focus on not one but several social media platforms... the focus also has to be on creating unique, engaging messages that make it worthwhile reading them.... very annoying and very time consuming!

    If businesses do not have time to do it, how much would people willing to pay someone social media management company to do it for them monthly? What is a fair price? and do these companies exist?

    Yet you have time to hang out on boars (not judging btw).

    It's only difficult in the beginning. Once you get a hang of it it get's MUCH easier and will come naturally. You just need to decide what you want to do online.
    Is there really nothing happening in your business that you would like to communicate with your customers? That would be the first thing to do.

    Plenty of social media management companies out there but is your business big enough to hire one? If you do hire one, you'll still have to pass them on all the stuff that you want to communicate to your customers or else they will just post silly games.

    You would be MUCH better off reading up some articles on how to manage your online presence and doing it yourself. You don't have to do all social media platforms from the beginning either. Start with Facebook and Twitter and add more social media platforms if you want in the future.


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    #18
    hfallada
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,180 ✭✭✭hfallada


    You can update your twitter account in 30 seconds. Take a picture of the weekly special with a description of under 140 characters. It kills when I Google a business and can't find its opening hours and have to call them. How many staff hours are wasted answering calls about finding info that should be on a website.

    Aldi said Ireland was the first country that they had to set up a Facebook page for. That Irish consumers want a Facebook page for a business. And it makes sense for a business to have a Facebook. If a customer likes a page and every time you update your status and you log on your status is in their newsfeed to read. Unlike a mail shot that will be binned 95% of the time


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    #19
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    If you run metrics on where you are getting your business from then you should follow what delivers the best results.

    Aldi and Lidl are unusual in that they use the web well. But every company that does that, there must be 50 who's online presence is entirely pointless.


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    #20
    DubTony
    Registered Users Posts: 3,269 ✭✭✭DubTony


    bizzyb wrote: »
    Where i decided to eat has no relevance to this thread, i was simply using it as an example that certain business not just the restaurant industry are not using social media which in my mind is a big negative to there business.

    Your example implied that the reason you didn't eat at the said restaurants was because they hadn't updated their web site and/or Facebook pages.

    Not all businesses use social media, or web sites. Many don't have to. Much like many businesses don't advertise on TV or radio. Chances are your local pub , chemist or convenience store don't have an online presence worth talking about. It is time consuming, and can be costly. Many businesses choose to focus on what they do best.

    Many businesses owners simply don't see the point. If all my business comes from the local area (like many restaurants), and I do everything I can to keep my customers happy and coming back, the time spent on social media can be wasted. Sometimes the best engagement with customers is face to face as opposed to (effectively) spamming their News Feed with your latest special offer, or picture of a cat.

    My understanding is that most people never leave their own HOME page on Facebook. And with some people having gazillions of "friends", isn't it likely that your message would just get lost in the noise?


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    #21
    AlmightyCushion
    Moderators, Education Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 35,079 Mod ✭✭✭✭AlmightyCushion


    Any business that deals with the public should have some sort of web presence (whether that be a website or Facebook page) with information such as opening times, contact details, price and other useful information. The internet is where we get a huge amount of our information and it's usually one if the first ,if not the first, place we look for things now. To not have that information there is madness. You could be missing out on a lot of business.

    For example, the other night I was looking at joining a gym. I'm looking for one with late enough opening times and at a decent. There are a good few gyms locally, I couldn't even tell you how many. Only a few had a web presence with contact details and little else. Only one had opening times, pricing details, details of equipment etc. This one ticked ask the boxes so decision made. Now for all I know some of the other gyms could have better opening times or equipment or be at a better price but I don't know and I'm not willing to go through the effort if ringing them all up or going into then to find out. People are inherently lazy, make it easy for them to do business with you.


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    #22
    bizzyb
    Registered Users Posts: 356 ✭✭bizzyb


    AlmightyCushion wrote: »
    Any business that deals with the public should have some sort of web presence (whether that be a website or Facebook page) with information such as opening times, contact details, price and other useful information. The internet is where we get a huge amount of our information and it's usually one if the first ,if not the first, place we look for things now. To not have that information there is madness. You could be missing out on a lot of business.

    For example, the other night I was looking at joining a gym. I'm looking for one with late enough opening times and at a decent. There are a good few gyms locally, I couldn't even tell you how many. Only a few had a web presence with contact details and little else. Only one had opening times, pricing details, details of equipment etc. This one ticked ask the boxes so decision made. Now for all I know some of the other gyms could have better opening times or equipment or be at a better price but I don't know and I'm not willing to go through the effort if ringing them all up or going into then to find out. People are inherently lazy, make it easy for them to do business with you.

    I was going to reply to the previous post but i couldn't have put it any better than you did, there is simply no excuse for ANY business not to have some form of web presence.


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