Five J Design Blog

It is Social Media Day, and we are going to tackle one BIG question that seems to come up quite often with clients! "Why should I use social media?" 

To start off, let's cover some of the excuses people make as to why NOT to use social media. Following these excuses, I will cover some reasons why social media is indeed a game-changer for business. Keep on reading!

"It takes too long and I don't have time."

"It's too complicated."

"It won't benefit my business." 

So, what is YOUR excuse for not using social media as a marketing tool? Does it confuse you? Does it take up too much of your time? Is it for the "younger generations"? Well, whatever your reasoning, listen here: 

How many times this week have you been sucked into the Facebook video vortex? I'm guessing it has happened at least once. We all start innocently; watching that Ed Sheeran carpool karaoke video and suddenly your learning about how a 24 year old embryo was implanted into a 25 year old woman resulting in a successful live birth and your spouse walks in and says, "Seriously, what are you doing?" Come on, it isn't just me, right?

Well, according to the research it isn't just me because 45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week. If your business isn't using video as a part of your online marketing strategy, you are definitely missing out. 

Let's face it, marketing today is complicated. Someone on your team will tell you need to kick up your email marketing efforts while you just read a report that says email marketing is dying. So who do you believe, and where should you spend your marketing dollars? Enter marketing analytics.

Get pumped! The single greatest shopping day of the year is almost here. We know you are counting down the days, but are you prepared? You are going to be researching doorbusters all Thanksgiving week, and as soon as Thanksgiving dinner is over, you and the crazies in your family will be hitting the newspaper ads and pounding the peppermint mochas. While you are preparing to cash in on all the huge deals, make sure you take a minute to cash in on the opportunities Black Friday brings for your business.

If you think that social media is not a tool your business should be using, think again. Here are some very real, very big statistics from Search Engine Journal:

• 87% of small businesses claim that social media has helped their business.
• 85% of business-decision makers believe that at least having one social media channel is very important for technology purchase decisions.
• 40% of small businesses feel that social media helped with their word-of-mouth referrals.

Owning a small business has enough challenges. 

If you're a small business owner, you know the energy it takes just to operate. You're the bookkeeper, the "IT guy", sales, and marketing all wrapped into one person! So how do you get everything done in a day? Fortunately, there are many tools that can make your jobs easier so you can focus on what matters most in your business. 

We've compiled a list of resources that are mostly free for you to use and ones we recommend to our clients almost daily. Why? Because most of these tools are ones that we use here at Five J Design. After all, we're a small business just like you. 

Design trends are constantly changing and it takes time and energy to keep up with these changes, so we have compiled a list of some trends to keep a look out for in 2016. 

The last few months at 5j Design have been quite exciting. We launched a new website design and have been working on a complete new line of service offerings called inbound marketing.