Let’s examine the facts;

There were 2,079,666 actively trading businesses in Australia at June 2013.

There were 563,412 businesses that employed ‘1-4’ employees, followed by 197,412 businesses that employed ‘5-19′ employees, 50,946 businesses employing ’20-199’ employees and 3,598 businesses that employed ‘200+’ employees. At June 2013, there were 556,504 businesses operating in the ‘Zero to less than $50k’ turnover range, 718,005 businesses in the ‘$50k to less than $200k’ turnover range, 672,150 businesses in the ‘$200k to less than $2m’ turnover range and 133,007 businesses in the ‘$2m or more’ turnover range. *Reference: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/8165.0

That’s a lot of small businesses.

While 91.9% of Australian businesses had internet access, less than half (44.6%) had an online presence.

Further;

Despite the stagnation in the share of businesses that accepted orders online, the income earned from online orders has grown significantly. In total, $237.1 billion was earned by Australian businesses through online orders, which is an increase of 25.6% from 2010-11 ($188.7 billion). When you consider that statistic with the finding that the share of businesses accepting orders online fell 0.2%, it suggests that those businesses that continue to hold out are missing out. *Reference http://www.digitalbusiness.gov.au/2013/07/02/latest-abs-statistics-many-australian-businesses-still-not-engaging-online/

Let’s not hold out – let’s work out what we should be doing online.

Continue reading “Social Media; 5 Essentials for Small Business”