Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, data shows that social media usage across messaging and social platforms increased 21% globally, leading to an increasing number of marketers to prioritize social channels in the coming year. This uptick is driven by social media consumption habits of Millennials and Gen Z, with each demographic engaging with online content upwards of 8-10 hours a day.
UpCity wanted to explore this social media marketing trend more in-depth with our own survey, so we partnered with Pollfish to explore the social media marketing practices and strategies of small business owners as they pivot to respond to consumer behaviors in 2022.
The Pollfish survey gathered feedback from 600 respondents, with an equal mix of small business owners and staff working in marketing and technology from companies in the United States and Canada.
We broke down Pollfish’s findings into the following topics:
- Social Media Platforms and Content
- Social Media Performance
- Social Media Tools and Resources
While our survey focused strictly on the data, we also reached out to social media marketing experts to weigh in on the same questions we posed to respondents and provide their own commentary via experience, tips, and suggestions for other small business owners to create or bolster their own effective social media marketing strategies moving into 2022.
Social Media Platforms and Content
36% of U.S. and Canadian small businesses noted that Facebook was the most valuable social media platform for them pre-COVID. 32% note that Facebook remains their top social media platform now in 2022, despite dropping by 4%.
An interesting shift occurred throughout the pandemic and into 2022. With the rising importance of video marketing and increased online usage of social platforms, much of the shift away from Facebook can be attributed to the increased leveraging of TikTok, a lower-cost and much more viral advertising platform. A similar shift towards LinkedIn occurred this year because of the low cost and high access to business decision-makers the platform allows.
Despite these shifts, Facebook remains a primary channel for social media marketing by most small businesses largely due to the scope of access the platform allows. Aside from being one of the most trafficked social media websites, Facebook provides other benefits for small business advertising.
- Provides a balanced marketing platform for both B2B and B2C, providing flexible marketing channels
- Powerful audience targeting tools
- Competitor targeting and research tools
- Diverse ad formats allow for ads to function in various parts of the funnel
- Powerful inbound tools to drive traffic directly to your website
| Pre-COVID | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| 36% | 32% | |
| 17% | 17% | |
| 13% | 11% | |
| YouTube | 12% | 11% |
| TikTok | 9% | 13% |
| 7% | 8% | |
| 3% | 4% | |
| Other | 4% | 5% |
“It doesn’t surprise us, and here’s why: although the social media world is changing rapidly, Facebook is still the first go-to platform for small businesses due to its extensive list of business-friendly features (CTAs, business dashboard, stats, etc.). The platform also provides businesses with a simple platform from which to interface with prospects and existing customers, along with useful industry-related content. Most other social media platforms miss the mark in providing simple methods of audience engagement and that feeling of community Facebook business profiles can guarantee to its users.”
—Ivan Vislavskiy, CEO & Head of Production, Comrade Digital Marketing Agency
We wanted to check in with social media experts on what platforms they used prior to the pandemic and how they’ve shifted their social media marketing efforts since. Several of the responses supported both the primacy of Facebook and the rising use of TikTok and LinkedIn.
“Facebook and Instagram really helped me engage with my audience even before Covid. And it’s still my most used social media even to this day. It’s where all your customers are, it’s where your people are. And since Covid hit, people have been spending more time on these platforms. Its features have been truly engaging, especially using stories and reels. Creating quick-fix videos that are quite addictive, leaving your audience a sense of curiosity. You can also put up a poll or a survey, involve your audience and at the same time you are able to do a research of what’s popular. It’s where the new marketing trends are. And you have a really high potential of creating a following hence a high chance of people coming to your website.”
—Robert Banks, Founder, MrStocks
“LinkedIn is the social networking powerhouse for small businesses. Although it is the most professional social network available, it has become increasingly informal over time. LinkedIn’s early users were primarily focused on recruiting and professional networking, but it has now evolved into a wonderful platform for fostering customer interaction. LinkedIn can help you find possible vendors, consumers, and business partners, allowing you to extend both your professional and social networks. LinkedIn can even help you get company capital. LinkedIn also allows you to produce extensive blog posts and articles, something most other platforms do not. This is a fantastic approach to establishing a name for oneself in your industry.”
—Daniel Foley, Marketing Specialist, Scooter.guide
“In pre-COVID days we used LinkedIn the most, as it was the most official channel for our PR communications. While we already used Instagram pre-COVID, the pandemic brought the opportunity to use TikTok as a communication platform. The use of this app skyrocketed during the pandemic, and we were able to offer online photo-taking solutions to people who needed official biometric pictures taken and shipped to them. We were able to attract a decent outreach through TikTok during confinement.”
—Leszek Dudkiewicz, Head of Marketing, Passport-Photo Online
22% of businesses said that video content produced the most social media engagement pre-COVID. Businesses are still receiving the most engagement with video content in 2022, with a 3% increase.
The coronavirus outbreak had a tremendous impact on marketing trends across the spectrum. Many marketing tactics were halted abruptly by clients, while other tactics evolved in ways that helped them remain relevant and valid. Video marketing and consumption was a marketing channel that actually continued to evolve and grow throughout the pandemic and continues to provide high conversion rates and engagement with potential leads.
The increase in video usage accounts for some of the shift away from static image usage in ads and content, but there was also a shift in the usage of promotions and offers and a slight increase in testimonials and reviews. This plays into the increasing importance consumers are putting on word-of-mouth and reviews as they are spending more time researching the brands they consume before making a purchasing decision.
| Pre-COVID | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| Videos | 22% | 25% |
| Promotions and offers | 20% | 19% |
| Images | 19% | 17% |
| Testimonials and reviews | 11% | 12% |
| Articles | 9% | 9% |
| Infographics | 7% | 8% |
| Quizzes and polls | 6% | 6% |
| Webinars | 6% | 6% |
“The increase in video usage and the correlation to usage in promotions is not a surprise. I would have thought the percentage would have been higher than 22-25%. As a live streaming platform we also saw a rise in usage during the pandemic. Live streaming allows for real time promotion and interaction with potential consumers. The streaming auctions market has grown 12.2% from 2017-2022.
I believe in addition to the interactive nature of live streaming that video marketing overall appeals due to it resonating with both visual and auditory learners/consumers. There are customers who need to see what they are going to purchase while others just need to hear about it. Some of YouNow’s broadcasters use the platform to share merch businesses they have or direct users to purchase music. This is an area of marketing that will only continue to grow and evolve as is evident by the adoption of the metaverse.”
—Allan Givens, Director of Strategic Marketing, YouNow
Video content was also a primary content channel used by the social media marketers we polled both before and throughout the pandemic.
“Among the various content types we include in our content strategy, videos, informative blogs, and testimonial graphics are the top three that drive key business results. Video is the social media content type that generates the highest engagement. Since the pandemic, video content has become increasingly popular and noticeably shorter in length.”
—Stacey Kane, Business Development Lead, EasyMerchant
“We found well-written articles and guides on ‘how to do something’ work well on professional based social networks such as Linkedin. However, we found small one-line hints and tips work better on Twitter. We tried to mix and match, but the Twitter communities seem to expect short, snappy, bites of information. Linkedin expects well-researched, long-form content. I have determined people have a different level of ‘information consumption’ expectancy, depending on what platform they use.”
—Andrew Johnston, Owner, UserSearch.org
“Videos drive us the best results, and after videos, good quality articles. This has not changed after the pandemic. For us, videos always bring more conversion than any other content. We have experienced that videos are more engaging and memorable, and it holds the attention of your audience for a longer time.”
—Sanket Shah, CEO, InVideo
66% of small businesses focused on posting original social media content pre-COVID. Respondents are still focusing on creating original content in 2022, though with a slight decrease at 3%.
Web visitors crave fresh, new content, which also has the impact of helping to build brand awareness and position an organization as an industry knowledge leader. Fresh, informative content also helps position your website more favorably with search engine results and increases your qualified lead generation by attracting visitors who are interested in the services you’re offering or products you’re selling.
| Pre-COVID | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| Yes, I mostly shared original content | 66% | 63% |
| No, I shared mostly third-party content | 12% | 13% |
| Both – I shared an even fix of original and third-party content | 21% | 25% |
“Not only does the 3% decrease post covid surprise me but I am also surprised by the 66% pre-covid number. We live in a time where forming a connection with your customer is just as important as your product and social media is the easiest way to form that connection. At this point every small business should be utilizing social media as it is a free organic way to promote your brand”
—Tim Hebel, Owner/Founder, Beanstalk Web Solutions
Regardless of the type of content businesses are leveraging, the goal is to keep that content original and focused on the brand in order to maximize its impact.
“Platforms such as Instagram and TikTok have made customers keener towards watching videos rather than reading text. Hence, we convey our message through video marketing to match consumer needs. This measure helps improve our engagement rate and improve conversions. We continue to share hybrid content, and the pieces that we take from other resources are directly quoted on our website. We use a mix of both strategies to create awareness among our target audience.”
—Patrick Smith, Editor-in-Chief, Firesticktricks
“We share a mix of original content and third-party content. In our industry as business services professionals, it is important for us to be seen as subject matter experts. That not only means producing our own content to educate our audiences, but showing them that we’re staying up-to-date by researching, reading, and sharing the latest industry news from sources like HBR, Forbes, WSJ, and other publications.”
—Keri Lindenmuth, Marketing Manager, The Kyle David Group LLC
“Since we had more time at home, demand for and creation of digital content has significantly increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, user behaviors and trends have shifted in the past two years to prefer more vertical video content. In order to stand out, content needs to be even more well thought out, creative pieces, and/or utilizing newer forms of content such as vertical video. Moving forward, we know that a mix of original and third-party content posts is required. Original content allows the business to position itself how it would like in its content. Third-party content, especially user-generated content, is a great way for a business to increase its credibility—and often free or low-cost. When third-party content such as re-sharing others’ content is used, it’s an easy way to share content and connect with your audience while building backlinks.”
—Kit Huffman, Social Media Strategist, Seneca
Social media platforms have emerged as influential marketing channels as the COVID-19 pandemic has evolved over the last two years. Facebook has continued to be one of the most influential social channels, but we’ve seen a rise in the use of TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms that prioritize video content. Whichever form marketing content takes, organizations have focused primarily on unique original content, but also continue to post third-party content to bolster their own content and build brand authority.
Social Media Performance
Most respondents noted engagement as their top social media performance metric pre-COVID. 22% of respondents still measure success by engagement metrics now in 2022.
Understanding the performance of your social media efforts requires your team to track a wide array of marketing statistics. What we’ve found as marketers as data analytics become increasingly important is that social media strategies executed across online social media platforms depend on the engagement of users in order for the content to have the intended impact. It follows that engagement would be the primary metric tracked by our respondents to measure the impact of their social media efforts. However, engagement isn’t necessarily enough to determine if your content is getting the job done. That’s why click-on calls-to-action leading back to your website, click-through rates, and audience growth is also cited by businesses as important metrics to track.
By tracking traffic back to your website and the growth of readership or active users on your social media channel, you can better gauge the reach of your brand and interest in your services and products. Traffic filtered back to your website through calls for action means that your marketing team has created effective copy and crafted an effective client persona. Due to the tendency of users to share content on social media, a wider audience will boost your potential reach and even the impressions your content might make on readers as shared content populates users’ feeds.
Pre-COVID (On a scale of 1-8, 1 being the most important metric):
Engagement
Clicks to website
Audience growth rate
Impressions
Potential reach
Click-through-rate
Conversion rates
Social share of voice
2022
22% – Engagement
17% – Clicks to website
14% – Audience growth rate
9% – Impressions
9% – Potential reach
10% – Click-through-rate
11% – Conversion rates
8% – Social share of voice
We wanted to see the mix of metrics professionals in the field are using to track the impact of their social media efforts and posed the question to the community at large.
“Social media marketing metrics that are key to track in 2022 fall under a few big buckets. The first is engagement, which is essentially a count of your likes, comments, clicks, and shares—all of the times that you know someone is actively engaging with your content. The second is awareness, which is largely just impressions and reach which, despite common misconceptions, are not the same thing. You should be tracking both. The third is share of voice, which you should prepare to be an ongoing effort in perpetuity as this is one of the trends that is most evident long term and is becoming increasingly more important in an ever more saturated social media marketing environment.”
—Kate Kandefer, CEO, SEOWind
“There are various metrics that are used in the company to check on the brands progress such as awareness metric where the progress of the followers is monitored. Engagement awareness metric is also used, where I look at the reaction of the customers either by either liking the products and services or responding negatively. I also use the conversation metric where I check on the number of new followers and subscribers who are new as a result of the posts and advertisements which indicates whether the particular service is of value to them.”
—Martina Taylor, Owner, Baltimore Property Partners
“To evaluate the effectiveness of our content, we estimate percentage engagement. The impact of our marketing campaigns is measured through conversion rate. I use these metrics because they are easy to calculate and give a clear insight into which marketing campaign is the most effective. These metrics help us create content that makes our brand more interactive and audience-centered.”
—Carl Panepinto, Marketing & SEO Expert, Storm Internet
56% of small businesses said that investing in social media is a priority for them in 2022 compared to only 49% of respondents who invested in social media pre-COVID.
Marketers are increasingly responding to the changing demands and behaviors of consumers by shifting their marketing focus to the channels where the traffic has been seen to be increasing throughout the pandemic. As a result, those who hadn’t made social media a priority prior to the COVID-19 outbreak are shifting resources to do so moving forward. Customer engagement on social media channels can be leveraged into deeper relationships and improved word-of-mouth referrals. Enhancing social media efforts bolsters social proof strategies and improves the perception of the brand, making it easier to grow your audience overall.
(On a scale of 1-8, 1 being the most important metric)
| Pre-COVID | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| Yes, social media was a priority for me pre-COVID | 49% | 56% |
| Somewhat, I invested in social media but it wasn’t my top priority | 37% | 29% |
| No, I did not invest in social media pre-COVID | 15% | 15% |
We wanted to expand upon the data here and discover whether businesses had prioritized social media prior to COVID-19 and whether they planned to continue to do so going into 2022.
“Social media was one of the top priorities for my business pre-COVID and it remains among my top priorities this year. If anything, it has taken on increased levels of importance. The world is still reeling from the after-effects of the pandemic, and it has become critical for businesses to attract customers through social media channels.”
—Dan Skaggs, CEO, One Thing Marketing
“We prioritized social media channels pre-COVID and continue to do so going into 2022, as we feel that social media is a powerful tool for an eCommerce business like us. As businesses recover, we’ve found that we have a huge list of competitors and it’s getting harder to be noticed. At the same time, people are losing interest on Instagram and now prefer TikTok more. We are slowly putting our efforts to TikTok lately and studying our demographic there.”
—Daisy Jing, Founder & CEO, Banish
“Social media has always been a priority for us, in the past, we relied on customers finding us on our Twitter account which would lead them to our site. However, since COVID we have shifted our focus to more content marketing. We rely on our blog posts to bring new customers to our site, and purchase our service. We have focused on creating informative and valuable blog content that gives us authority, and we have found that has driven conversion rates.”
—Ouriel Lemmel, CEO, WinIt
18% of respondents stated that difficulty building followers and attracting influencers was their biggest challenge with social media pre-COVID. Now in 2022, 17% of respondents noted that their biggest challenge is not having enough financial resources.
Prior to the pandemic outbreak, business growth was the biggest challenge on social media, with constantly evolving changes in how advertising functioned and how targeted audiences were being presented with ads and information about a business. These constant social media advertising changes impacted how to best build up followers and attract influencers to speak on behalf of a brand. Much of this stems from a lack of a cohesive or effective strategy on the part of many brands or a misunderstanding on how to properly leverage specific social media channels.
As business resumes and marketing rebounds, the ongoing difficulties in recouping or even maintaining revenue streams have shifted marketing challenges away from audience building slightly. A majority of respondents pointed to fiscal shortages as hampering their marketing efforts, but strategic challenges and difficulties attracting an audience continue to vex many of our respondents moving into 2022.
| Pre-COVID | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| Not having enough financial resources | 13% | 17% |
| Not having enough human resources | 12% | 14% |
| Lacking an effective strategy | 16% | 15% |
| Difficulty building followers and attracting influencers | 18% | 17% |
| Difficulty tracking results | 12% | 12% |
| Challenging to adapt to the changing features on the platforms | 14% | 14% |
| Challenging to select the right channels to use | 14% | 13% |
In the field, marketing challenges relative to social media run a fairly wide spectrum, but often can be reduced to challenges with the added costs of shifting marketing strategies to meet client behaviors.
“Marketing and media costs have been re-evaluated by many businesses in an effort to generate a steady stream of customer attention and spending while ensuring acceptable returns on media investments. As a result of social media sites like YouTube and Twitter, rumors and questionable information may be amplified. Misinformation and heavily edited photographs are returning to social media feed in the same ways they have for years, making them problematic for mental health. Users, particularly those who use social media more regularly, are influenced by these wildly exaggerated portrayals. It’s difficult to predict what’s going to happen next. But it is recommended to have a plan in place to relaunch anything you’ve launched during the pandemic when the restrictions are lifted.”
—David Farkas, Founder & CEO, The Upper Ranks
“My biggest challenge when using social media to scale my business was hiring the right individuals. Since we primarily operated as a brick-and-mortar business, digital technology wasn’t our area of expertise. So when hiring for technical talent, we weren’t sure which metrics make them successful marketers. Social media platforms are continuously evolving to enhance the user experience, making hiring candidates with updated industry knowledge difficult.”
—Albert Vaisman, Founder, Soxy
“One of the biggest challenges we face with social media is that the algorithm is instantly changing. In the past, we’ve responded to algorithm changes by stepping up our content generation efforts, but recent changes have caused reach to become more difficult to maintain. While the new features that are coming up are great, it always has a negative effect on previous features making us constantly need to exert more time and effort to figure out how to beat the algorithm and reach more users, which is becoming an increasingly expensive undertaking.”
—Mike Nemeroff, Co-Founder & CEO, Rush Order Tees
As the role of social media platforms in small business marketing strategies grow in importance for many organizations moving into 2022, the metrics being used by many organizations to track the impact of their social media efforts remains primarily based on visitor engagement. When other metrics are mentioned, they are often largely dependent on initial levels of visitor engagement, so various methods are used to boost interaction on social media sites and increase traffic. This has ensured many organizations continue to prioritize investing in social media in their strategies, but many point to the costs of doing so as the primary challenge in maintaining their social media programs.
Social Media Tools and Resources
41% of businesses didn’t use any social media software pre-COVID compared to 36% of businesses that still don’t use social media software in 2022.
Many of our survey’s respondents prior to the pandemic managed their social media without the benefit of a software solution. However, with more organizations prioritizing social media and expanding their use of platforms and the volume of posts, it follows that moving into 2022, fewer of our respondents will forgo using software to manage their social media campaigns.
| Pre-COVID | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| Sprout Social | 7% | 7% |
| Hootsuite | 10% | 10% |
| Buffer | 6% | 9% |
| SocialPilot | 13% | 16% |
| MeedEdgar | 5% | 4% |
| Sendible | 5% | 7% |
| Other | 12% | 11% |
| I didn’t use any social media software pre-COVID | 41% | 36% |
Respondents to our survey listed SocialPilot, Hootsuite, and Buffer as the top software tools they plan to use in the coming year. We posed the same query to professionals in the marketing industry to find out what tools are commonly being leveraged.
“Social Pilot is one of our personal favorites at Contentellect. It’s a social media management tool that is perfect for small to medium-sized businesses or digital marketing agencies. It’s fully integrated and includes custom reporting and various collaboration tools. We use it as you can schedule auto-posts that have been carefully curated with regards to your digital marketing strategy as well as utilizing it to interact with our customers, industry followers and audience.”
—Mark Whitman, Founder & CEO, Contentellect
“We use Buffer for managing our posts across different platforms. Buffer is a comprehensive tool that saves us a lot of time by centralizing all processes. We can schedule posts, monitor their performance, and even create complex campaigns easily. Since we always plan activities way ahead of time, Buffer is a perfect tool for us. It is intuitive, very user-friendly, and affordable, considering that our company is still considered a small business. Plus, Buffer has plenty of updates so we’re never behind on trends.”
—Nick Chernets, CEO, Data for SEO
“BuzzSumo is my favorite social media marketing tool because it helps us explore high-performing content from yesteryears and monitor what our competition has prioritized. That helps us avoid repeating content, offer a different perspective and unique points if a pitch has already been covered, and provide up-to-date stats in our content, suffice it to mean our results are improving. The tool comes in handy for our marketing team in generating seasonal ideas, for example, trends and gift guides, which ensures our company responds rapidly to capture opportunities. With BuzzSumo, it was relatively easy to identify influencers in our niche and determine what resonates with our clients, thus helping us enhance our digital footprint giving value to customers.”
—Ryan Yount, Founder, LuckLuckGo
52% of small businesses handled social media in-house pre-COVID rather than seeking outside help. 48% of respondents still currently handle social media in-house.
The decrease in in-house social media management can largely be attributed to the streamlining of operations due to reduced revenue streams and staffing reductions due to work stoppage. When many teams went remote due to quarantines and lockdown measures requiring social distancing, many organizations either downsized staff or discontinued certain marketing activities. As limitations have been lifted in many states, and businesses work to revitalize their marketing strategies, they’ve found that outsourcing tasks such as social media management frees up their staff to remain focused on sales and client management in order to maximize the bottom line.
| Pre-COVID | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| No, I only worked with an in-house social media team | 52% | 48% |
| No, I only worked with social media freelancers/consultants | 29% | 28% |
| Yes, I worked with a third-party social media agency | 19% | 24% |
“This doesn’t surprise me because people are becoming more and more comfortable with social media. However, some small businesses can’t afford to pay an expert, especially during COVID where a lot of business owners lost a lot of business, some even having to shut down completely. One thing is concrete: if you own a small business your digital presence needs to be available to your customers online. When the shutdown happened and people were not able to leave their homes and go to work, social media helped some small business owners keep their doors open”
—Michael Hernandez, President, Rocket Marketing and Design
Social media marketing is a complex and time-consuming undertaking. We wanted to see if the marketing community, in general, followed the same trend of prioritizing outsourcing over performing social media tasks in-house, so we explored outsourcing practices with professionals in the field and found a mix of approaches.
“Prior to the pandemic, we had an in-house team, but COVID-19 forced us to have to shift to outsourced help. We have taken the services of freelancers, which I believe is cheaper than marketing agencies. Since we are just a small business, we needed someone to grow our brand alone. Freelancers have been a lifesaver because our in-house marketing team can now focus more on more important aspects of our company, making them more productive and efficient. Moreover, since the primary goal of our freelancers is to grow the brand, they are more proactive with their strategies and sometimes suggest ways to increase the brand awareness of the company.” —Connor Brown, Founder, After School Finance
“At Mobitrix, we handle our social media by outsourcing through freelancers’ help. It was hard to start outsourcing the services, but it is far more cost-effective than hiring a full-time social media manager since they still offer the specialist support needed. The benefits of having freelancers handle our social media include having a professional approach, new eyes on our content, staying a step ahead, gaining back time for the business, and faster response time to our customers. Freelancers give us much less commitment which in case of any budget changes, we are in a position to reduce the workload or negotiate a more suitable rate as necessary.”
—John Tian, Co-Founder, Mobitrix.com
“While we have experimented with outsourcing social media marketing to various agencies in the past, we now prefer to keep things in-house. As our understanding of social media marketing has increased over time, we have felt less of a need to leverage the expertise of other professionals. As I have the strongest understanding of our brand voice, I personally handle all of our social media marketing. When we have embraced or explored new platforms, such as TikTok, I have consulted with professionals that have experience scaling and growing accounts on specific platforms. In the past, we have consulted with freelancers and small agencies for social media marketing support. If you’re going down the agency route, I’d strongly suggest seeking clarity on exactly who will work on your account. Many social media marketing agencies experience high staff turnover and have a tendency to reshuffle employees. When you know exactly who is working on your account, you can begin to build rapport with the professional and educate them on your brand voice. I feel it’s easier to build this type of relationship with a freelancer.”
—Andrew Helling, Editor-In-Chief, Rethority
24% of small businesses choose and hire a social media agency based on the agency’s years of experience
When looking to outsource projects to agencies and freelancers, organizations should take into consideration a number of factors to determine whether the third-party would be an effective partner. Our respondents prioritized an agency or service provider’s years of experience in their decision-making, with the cost of services and referrals rounding out their top concerns. It’s interesting in moving into this post-COVID landscape that reviews and testimonials are fairly low in the decision-making hierarchy for our respondents.
2022
21% – Affordable pricing
24% – Years of experience
13% – Impressive portfolio
15% – Referred by a colleague, friend, or family member
12% – Seemed like the right cultural fit
11% – Had positive online reviews and testimonials
2% – Other
Our respondents’ preferences for hiring agencies and the metrics they focus on when hiring are largely in line with the feedback received from professional marketing experts in the field making the same choices and decisions.
“While hiring third-party help for social media, we prefer a person who Is strong in design and communication skills. In addition, we look for their portfolio and their overall past experiences to ensure whether they have worked in similar types of projects so that we need not spend much time and resources in training them as per our requirements.”
—Will Cannon, CEO, Uplead
“I look for freelancers to bring something to the table that I couldn’t myself – expertise or innovation. For example, I’ve hired freelancers to assist with Pinterest, a platform I’m not that familiar with. I’m looking for their advice, ideas, and knowledge, as well as just somebody to do the work. Similarly, I look for freelancers who are inventive and can bring their own creativity, not simply people who will ‘go through the motions’ and upload posts.”
—Ben Taylor, Founder, HomeWorkingClub.com
“We look for an agile team that is open-minded and adaptive. It’s crucial to know how to adapt to ever-changing business circumstances. We don’t want them to be a stickler for old-school methods. We want someone who can experiment and think out of the box. Poor quality is a deal-breaker. It’s not enough if workflow ideas look good on paper. Execution should be top-notch!”
—Ruben Gamez, Founder & CEO, SignWell
When you consider outsourcing to an agency, freelancer, or contractor as outsourcing to a third-party in a general sense, it makes sense that the decrease in in-house marketing teams moving into this year is matched by an equal uptick in the use of external marketing resources for social media. Hiring third-party social media marketing solutions follows much the same patterns that we’ve seen in other outsourcing efforts, where skills, experience, and cost are only matched in the decision process by direct referrals.
Don’t Discount Social Media Marketing In Your 2022 Strategy
As we enter the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses are recovering and revitalizing their marketing efforts, but they’re doing so according to the changing habits of consumers and striving to meet consumers where their attention is focused. With Facebook topping many advertisers’ lists, we’re also seeing a shift to affordable video marketing on other platforms such as TikTok. If you want to learn more about how to build engagement across social media platforms, one of the most effective foundational metrics that reveal the efficacy of your marketing efforts, explore UpCity’s social media list to connect with professional agencies and explore relevant content that can help you decide on how to position social media in your own marketing strategy for the year to come.
UpCity’s Survey Method
UpCity used Pollfish to survey 600 small businesses throughout the United States and Canada with 2-250 employees. 58% of small businesses are B2B and 42% of businesses are B2C.
A majority of respondents work in the Construction (12%), Software (8%), Healthcare (7%), Hospitality (7%), and Retail (6%) industries.
Most of the small businesses have been operating for 3-5 years (29%) with annual revenue of less than $500,000 (41%). Thirty-seven percent of respondents have a monthly social media budget of less than $500 in 2022.