A nation of small businesses?

According to UK government statistics SMEs account for 99.9% of all enterprises and almost two thirds (64.2%) of private sector businesses are sole partnerships.

Perhaps not just a nation of shop keepers, but apparently a nation of small businesses anyway, with many enterprises having just one person doing everything. And not unsurprisingly non existent marketing budgets. Yet marketing guidance, advice and implantation is what they need to flourish. We can speculate the reasons why there are increasing numbers of what might be termed 'micro businesses' not least the complex and all reaching mass of employment legislation that is probably deterring many growing companies from taking on employees. Preferring instead to sub contract to other micro businesses creating a network of inter connected enterprises. Into this space comes LinkedIn.

LinkedIn seems to target professionals and has kind of evolved into, not exactly a job site where people looking for employment post their CV, but nonetheless a place to publicise skills and experience and garner glowing testimonials from people you have worked with. There are groups to join where ideas can be exchanged and through connections access to millions. And yet are people attracting business enquiries  from this source? I suspect that for most the leads and conversions are small, if any. Meanwhile it becomes another time consuming investment to develop contacts aded to the time sunk into other social media platforms.