According to research, only one in ten small business owners in Cornwall has a social media strategy.

The World Branding Forum – a non-profit organisation for the advancement of standards in the branding industry – conducted a survey of 1,550 small business owners to find out exactly how social media savvy they are.

Only 10% of small business owners in Cornwall said they have any form of social media strategy, compared to a national average of 16%.

Moreover, it was found that 58% of consumers say local businesses do not do enough social media marketing but want to engage more with them. More than a third (37%) say they are most likely to follow local businesses on the Facebook platform, followed by LinkedIn (29%), YouTube (15%), Instagram (12%) and Twitter (7%).

Small business owners said the main reason they do not dedicate much to social media marketing is lack of time (39%). They also believe that these strategies can prove too expensive (30%), that they don’t know enough about social media (17%) and that they don’t think social media is effective (13%).