Not good strategy - WA Businesses Socially Inept

I came across this article in the WA Business News which suggested that WA businesses have not embraced the power of social media. Coming from WA, I see this as a little disappointing as my perception had always been that WA businesses are more technologically adventurous, seeing as Perth is the most isolated city in the world geographically. Social media is definitely a frontier to be crossed if businesses in WA want to get ahead of the game and Twitter is one of the first places to start.

WA businesses online but not tweeting
28-September-10 by Kym Fuhrmann

Western Australian businesses are the most likely in the country to have a website but many WA small businesses are choosing not to use social media, according to two new surveys.

The latest MYOB Business Monitor found 40 per cent of WA businesses were likely to have a website, higher than the national average of 35 per cent.

The survey found 25 per cent of Western Australian businesses are also likely to use their website for e-commerce.

But a separate poll by the Small Business Development Corporation found only a third of the state's small businesses are using social media.

SBDC Acting Managing Director, Jacky Finlayson said the Ready Response social media poll found 65 per cent of small business operators did not use the medium to promote their business.

"When used correctly, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and other social media tools can be of enormous assistance to small business operators with limited capital to spend on advertising and promotion," Ms Finlayson said.

The MYBO survey found only 18 per cent of businesses used social media.

Tim Reed, MYOB CEO, said, "Social media has received a lot of hype in Australia over the last 12 months so it's quite interesting to see such a low adoption of these online platforms by Australian businesses."

"Rather than being well established, the results indicate that online marketing is only just emerging in Australia."

"Despite the current low adoption rates of social media and websites, it's inevitable that the use of online platforms will increase rapidly in Australia as business owners see global competitors using these forums to lure local sales offshore," Mr Reed said.

According to the SBDC of those WA businesses using social media, 89 per cent were using Facebook, 68 per cent were using LinkedIn and 52 per cent were using Twitter.