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Social Media Use in Small Business

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Social Media Use in Small Business
Social Media Use

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Social Media Use in a Small Business

Social Media Use Introduction Medical Claims Consulting is an independently owned consulting business located in Austin, TX. The focus of the company is to help individuals understand and resolve their medical claims and insurance billing issues. It is a single person business that was established in November of 2009. The services offered can be handled virtually, eliminating the need for face to face, in person consultations, therefore clients can be physically located anywhere, however thus far the majority reside in Texas. Currently, little marketing is done to obtain new clients. Networking, word of mouth referrals and an affiliation with a national association, Medical Billing Advocates of America, are the only marketing efforts used to date to grow the business. Other avenues, such as social media marketing have been considered however no concerted effort has been put forth. Business Question The owner would like to answer the following question: Should social media marketing be used in a small business? It is understood that the owner may need additional training and education on the social media avenues and there will be a time commitment necessary to effectively implement a social media strategy. The following are hypothesized: 1. Social media is an effective method for marketing a small business 2. Social media will enable a small business to reach a larger client market base 3. Using social media will increase revenue

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Social Media Use Social media defined

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Social media is an open outlet for two-way communication and interactive dialogue (Lee, 2010). Social media stimulates live and immediate discussion (Bushey, 2010) on a plethora of topics and can be considered word-of-mouth advertising of the 21st century. Social media is an influential marketing and communication tool and its impact can be far reaching, at minimal to no cost and have powerful implications (Strauss,



Bibliography: 10 Barnes, N., & Mattson, E. (2009). Social media in the 2009 inc. 500: New tools and new trends. Journal of New Communications Research, 4(2), 70-79. Bushley, C. (2010). All a twitter. Journal of Property Management, 75(1), 24-27. Geho, P. R., Smith, S., & Lewis, S. D. (2010). Is twitter a viable commercial use platform for small businesses? An empirical study targeting two audiences in the small business community. Entrepreneurial Executive, 15, 73-85. Hoffman, D. & Fodor, M., (2010). Can you measure the ROI of your social media marketing? MIT Sloan Management Review, 52(1), 41-9. Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media. Business Horizons, 53(1), 59-68. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003 Lacho, K. J., & Marinello, C. (2010). How small business owners can use social networking to promote their business. Entrepreneurial Executive, 15,127-133. Lee, D. (2010). Growing popularity of social media and business strategy. SERI Quarterly, 3(4), 112-117. Loechner, J. (2010, March 2). Social media adoption yields new customers for small businesses. Retrieved from: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art _aid=123455 McKee, S. (2009). Why social media is worth small business owners ' time. BusinessWeek Online, 15. Misner, I. (2010, May 10). The dos and don 'ts of social networking. Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/marketingideas/ networkingcolumnistivanmisner/article206500.html Phillips, M., McFadden, D. T., & Sullins, M. (2010, March). How effective is social networking for direct marketers? Journal of Food Distribution Research, 41(1), 96-100. Social Media Use Sass, E. (2011, February 9). You 've got tweets: social media supplanting email [Web log post]. Retrieved from The Social Graf Connecting Through Chaos: 11 http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=144606&nid =123591 Silverman, M. (2010, May 19). How to market your small business with now budget. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2010/05/19/ market-business-no-budget/ Smith, R. H. (2010, July). The state of small business report. June 2010 survey of small business success. Retrieved from Network Solutions, LLC and the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business website: http://www.networksolutions.com/smallbusiness/wp-content/files/ Network_Solutions_Small_Business_Success_Index.pdf Strauss, S. (2009). Twitter, don 't be a quitter. Oregon Business Magazine, 32(11), 7 Social-media impact balancing metrics and insight for advertising success. (n.d.). (Reprinted from Advertising 2.0: Social Media Marketing in a Web 2.0 World, by T. L. Tuten, 2008, Westport, CT: Praeger Publications). Retrieved from http://www.businessknowhow.com/internet/socialmedia.htm Timm, J. (2010, September 13). Amber mac 's new rules of engagement. Canadian Business, 13/14, 55-56.

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