Social Media Was Supposed to Help Small Businesses. What Happened?

When social media first started becoming important for businesses, I was completely sold on the idea.

For a small business, it looked almost revolutionary.

You could set up a Facebook page, show people what you made, talk directly to customers, build a following and reach people far beyond your local area without needing a huge advertising budget.

For someone running a small independent business, that was incredibly appealing.

You no longer had to rely entirely on newspaper advertising, expensive print campaigns or hoping somebody happened to walk through the door.

You could take a photograph, write a few words and potentially put your work in front of hundreds or thousands of people and not just in your own country.

I was genuinely excited by it.

Years later, my opinion of social media is very different.

I still use it because, like many small businesses, I feel I have to.

But if social media disappeared tomorrow, I honestly don't think I would miss it.

In fact, part of me wishes it would.

Small business owner overwhelmed by social media notifications, algorithms and constant online pressure while working at a desk.

A Wider Part of Self-Employment

Social media is only one part of the strange balancing act that comes with working for yourself. The freedom is real, but so is the pressure to constantly adapt, promote, communicate and keep up with things that often have very little to do with the work you actually set out to do.

I touched on that more broadly in The Madness & Freedom of Working for Yourself, which

Social Media Was Supposed to Connect People

The original idea behind social media was difficult to argue with.

It allowed people to reconnect with old friends, stay in touch with family, discover new interests, join communities and communicate with people they would never otherwise have met.

For businesses, it opened doors that had previously been closed.

A small craft business in rural Ireland could suddenly show its products to somebody hundreds of kilometres away.

A woodturner could share a new piece straight from the workshop.

A florist could show today's arrangements.

A restaurant could show tonight's special.

It gave small businesses something extremely valuable: visibility.

But somewhere along the way, social media stopped feeling like a tool designed primarily to connect people.

It became a machine designed to hold attention and create conflict to help keep you fixated.

When Attention Became the Product

Social media companies make money when people remain on their platforms.

The longer you scroll, the more advertisements you can be shown.

The more you interact, the more information the platform can gather about what interests you.

Every like, click, comment, share and pause tells the system something.

That information helps social media platforms decide what to show you next.

The problem is that what keeps people engaged is not always what makes them happy.

Sometimes it is the exact opposite.

Outrage works.

Arguments work.

Fear works.

Violence works.

Controversy works.

Someone saying something completely ridiculous works particularly well because thousands of people rush into the comments to tell them how ridiculous they are.

The platform doesn't necessarily care whether you loved what you saw or hated it.

It cares that you stopped scrolling.

You watched.

You commented.

You came back.

The algorithm doesn't need to know whether something makes you happy.

It only needs to know whether it makes you stay.

Bad Sells Better Than Nice

This is probably the part of social media that bothers me most.

Bad news often travels further than good news.

Anger creates more interaction than calm discussion.

A video of somebody helping another person might get a few polite likes.

A video of two people fighting can generate thousands of comments.

Then come the reaction videos.

Then the reposts.

Then the arguments underneath the reposts.

One piece of stupidity can create days of engagement.

There is now an entire economy built around deliberately provoking people.

Rage bait.

Engagement farming.

Fake arguments.

Staged confrontations.

Outrageous opinions posted purely because the person knows thousands of people will react.

And the more you engage with that kind of content, the more the system learns that this is something capable of holding your attention.

So you get more.

And then more again.

Before long, somebody can open Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or another platform and genuinely believe that the entire world has lost its mind.

Maybe part of the problem is that the most sensible people are quietly getting on with their lives while the loudest people have discovered that shouting into a phone can be profitable.

We Gave Everyone a Microphone

Social media has also created something that humanity had never really experienced before.

We effectively gave everybody a microphone.

That sounds wonderfully democratic until you realise that having a microphone does not automatically mean somebody has anything useful to say.

Worse again, the systems behind social media often reward whoever is loudest, most controversial or most outrageous.

Reasonable people rarely generate the biggest arguments.

Extreme opinions do.

Narcissism can become content.

Attention-seeking can become a career.

Idiocy can become incredibly profitable if enough people engage with it.

We gave everybody a microphone and then built algorithms that often reward whoever shouts loudest.

I don't think we fully understand the long-term consequences of that yet.

The Damage Is Becoming Harder to Ignore

I recently came across a short clip from comedian Jimmy Carr where he described social media in extremely blunt terms and suggested that it was becoming something deeply harmful to human beings.

I found myself agreeing with the sentiment.

Not because of one comedian's opinion, but because it increasingly reflects what we can all see around us.

There are now serious concerns about addictive design, particularly in relation to young people.

Governments and regulators are questioning how these platforms operate.

Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, has faced significant legal and regulatory scrutiny over allegations that its platforms were deliberately designed to encourage compulsive use and that this can cause harm, especially to younger users.

That subject could fill an article by itself.

But young people are only one part of a much wider problem.

Adults are affected too.

Politics becomes angrier.

Public debate becomes more extreme.

People retreat into increasingly narrow information bubbles.

Relationships are damaged over arguments with complete strangers.

People compare their real lives with carefully edited versions of everybody else's.

And millions of people spend hours every day staring into a device that has become extremely good at discovering exactly what will keep them staring at it.

I increasingly believe social media is damaging us as a species. Bold for a reason!

That may sound dramatic.

A few years ago I might have thought so too.

I'm not so sure anymore.

Small Businesses Are Trapped in the Same Machine

Then there is the business side.

This is where my relationship with social media becomes particularly frustrating.

Small businesses are constantly told that they need to be active online.

Post regularly.

Make videos.

Create Reels.

Post Stories.

Respond to comments.

Respond to messages.

Ask questions.

Encourage engagement.

Follow trends.

Use the right hashtags.

Don't use too many hashtags.

Post at the right time.

Keep producing content.

Keep feeding the machine, and by feeding that machine I keep it alive.

And just when you think you understand how one platform works, something changes.

The algorithm changes.

Reach changes.

Video suddenly becomes more important.

Then short video becomes more important.

Then something else arrives.

What worked six months ago might suddenly stop working.

And all the while, the business owner is expected to keep adapting.

Small Business Owners Didn't Sign Up to Become Content Creators

This is another part of modern business that I think deserves more discussion.

If you run a small business today, apparently you are no longer allowed to simply be good at your actual job.

You are also expected to become a photographer.

A videographer.

A presenter.

A copywriter.

A social media manager.

A customer service representative.

An advertising specialist.

A data analyst.

And occasionally, when you have a spare few minutes, you might actually get around to doing whatever business you originally started.

For me, that means running a workshop, teaching woodturning, making things, packing orders, ordering stock, maintaining machinery, managing a website and dealing with customers.

Social media is another job sitting on top of all of that.

And it is a job with no finishing line.

There is always another post you could make.

Another video you could upload.

Another message you could answer.

Another platform telling you that you should be more active.

Social media is only one extra layer on top of everything else involved in running a small craft business. I’ve written before about how hard it can be to run a craft business in Ireland, and the constant pressure to create content has simply become another part of that workload.

You Build the Audience, But You Don't Own the Gate

This is perhaps the strangest part of the relationship between businesses and social media.

Businesses spend years building followers.

People voluntarily click a button saying they want to follow that business.

Yet that does not necessarily mean they will actually see what the business posts.

The platform decides.

A business can build an audience and then discover that only a percentage of that audience is being shown its content.

If you want to guarantee visibility, there is another option.

Pay.

That is where the system becomes particularly clever.

Businesses provide endless amounts of free content that keeps users on the platform.

Then businesses pay the platform to ensure those same users see the content.

We create the material.

We help keep people engaged.

And then we pay for access to the audience we helped build.

You have to admire the business model, even if you dislike being part of it.

Advertising Creates Another Dependence

I still advertise on social media from time to time because there are situations where it can work.

That is the awkward reality.

These platforms can still be extremely useful for businesses.

The targeting can be effective.

You can reach local customers.

You can introduce people to a product or service they did not know existed.

You can remind previous customers that you are still there.

That is why businesses keep coming back.

But that usefulness also creates dependence.

Walking away completely means potentially walking away from customers.

So businesses stay.

We complain about the platforms, then open them again the following morning.

We dislike the algorithm, then try to understand what it wants.

We resent declining reach, then consider paying for an advertisement.

We tell ourselves we should spend less time on social media while simultaneously wondering whether we should post more often.

The contradiction is difficult to escape.

I Once Saw Social Media as an Opportunity

Perhaps that is why my change in attitude has been so dramatic.

I genuinely believed in social media as a business opportunity.

I could see enormous potential in it.

For several years, I enjoyed discovering how it worked.

I liked being able to show customers what I was doing.

I liked seeing businesses grow through Facebook and Instagram.

I liked the ability to communicate directly with people interested in the same things.

That side of social media still exists.

But for me, the toxic side eventually became overwhelming.

The endless negativity.

The arguments.

The outrage.

The engagement farming.

The addiction.

The fake lives.

The deliberate provocation.

The feeling that every platform is constantly trying to drag you back inside.

Eventually the negatives began to outweigh the positives.

I Am Trying to Depend on Social Media Less

These days, I would much rather somebody visit my website than my Facebook page.

I would rather build useful information on a platform I control.

I would rather somebody contact me through my website than start a conversation across Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp or whatever platform happens to be open at the time.

That is one reason I have gradually been trying to move more of my business communication back towards my own website.

A website isn't perfect.

Google changes.

Search changes.

Technology changes.

Nothing online is completely under your control.

But at least the website is mine.

The content is mine.

The structure is mine.

A social media account always feels slightly borrowed.

The platform owns the building.

You are renting a corner of it.

And the landlord can change the rules whenever they like.

That shift towards owning more of my own online presence is also why I’ve thought so much about what I would do differently if I had to build my website again from scratch.

The longer I run a business, the more I value having a base that isn’t completely dependent on someone else’s platform.

Do Small Businesses Still Need Social Media?

Unfortunately, yes.

That is what makes this whole subject frustrating.

I am not writing this while pretending I have escaped social media.

I haven't.

I still have business accounts.

I still post.

I still advertise occasionally.

I still recognise that customers use these platforms and businesses need to be where customers are.

But I no longer believe that building a business entirely around social media is particularly wise.

I would much rather social media be one small part of a business than the foundation underneath it.

Build your website.

Build your mailing list if it suits your business.

Build your reputation.

Build direct relationships with customers.

Create content that can still be found next year rather than disappearing into a feed after six hours.

Use social media.

But don't let social media own you.

Final Thoughts

Social media began with an extraordinary promise.

It could connect people.

It could give small businesses access to customers.

It could create communities that previously could never have existed.

Some of that promise was fulfilled.

But we also created one of the most powerful attention-capturing machines humanity has ever seen.

A machine that learns what interests us, what frightens us, what annoys us and what keeps us staring at a screen.

Businesses are caught inside that same system.

We need the customers.

The platforms need the businesses.

The advertisers need the audience.

And the audience is constantly being analysed to determine what will keep them there for another few minutes.

I once looked at social media and saw opportunity.

Now I increasingly look at it and wonder what it is doing to us.

I still use it.

I still see its value.

But if somebody switched the whole thing off tomorrow?

I suspect a lot of us would eventually be better for it.

Thanks for Reading,

David

About the Author

I’m David Condon, a small business owner and blog writer based in Tralee, Co. Kerry. Running my own woodcraft business means I’ve seen first-hand how much confusion there can be around shipping times, delivery dates, and what “business days” actually mean. That’s why I wrote this post — to share a bit of what I’ve learned and hopefully save you some frustration.

Every so often I step outside the workshop to write about wider business topics like this one. If you’d like to know more, you can follow the link in the Note from the Author section below or visit my About Me page to learn more.

💬 Note from the Author
This post was written specially for David Condon Finds. If you enjoyed it, you might also like my other projects:

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