Sometimes, Social Media Doesn’t Matter To A Business
When you live and breathe the Social Web everyday, spend hours on Twitter and looking at data, it can be a surprise when you stumble upon a business that has no website or Social Media engagement and well, really doesn’t need it. At all.
What business could this be? a shoe repair store. The Christmas tree sitting inside the door has been up for at least a decade based on the layer of dust on the ornaments. Magazines from 1989 sit on some shelves and shoe shine packages from the 1950’s sit on the slightly tilted shelves on a far wall. So one would naturally expecte a wisened elderly gentleman to be at the counter. Quite the contrary. It was the owners grandson, just shy of 30 years old who’d taken over the store three years prior. He had not changed a thing. Eccentric? Perhaps.
But why would this little shop need a website? He was in a prime business district, surrounded by theatres, restaurants, fine shops and coffee houses on one of the busiest streets in the city. The store is 45 years old and about 20 feet wide and 60 feet deep – what we might call “a hole in the wall.” Even the floors are lopsided, the linoleum the original, well worn and torn.
He has all the business he wants. His clientelle are loyal, they consider his work of high quality (a business does not decide if it makes quality products, the buyer decides that.) His prices reasonable. He has no stress and a part-timer who keeps the books in order and the cash register is older than the first abacus.
The lesson I learned was that Social Media, and the Web as a whole, is not a defining of the modern business. At times we have to remember that technology is not always necessary. Sometimes a friendly chat, face to face with someone interesting provides more insight that analytical tools or networking platforms.
(Author: Giles Crouch, Managing Partner – Twitter: Webconomist)