One of the most valuable commodities any small business can have is time. When businesses are just starting out, the number of employees may not be able to handle all of the tasks that are necessary to properly market the business. Social media is a great way to save time in this area, but eve then it can still take up a lot of time.

For this reason, some small business neglect social media and assume it’s not very important in getting the word out there. To small business environments that don’t have enough time to run the most basic of tasks, social media and other internet tools can seem like a novelty more than a necessity.

But if you need proof of how much time and money social media can save while also spreading the word about your business, we can look to Hollywood as an example. The speed at which movie news hits the eyes of readers is remarkable.

Many studios have learned that when they can properly leverage social media, they can build more hype around a movie than paid advertisements could ever hope to generate. Why spend thousands of dollars for a full page spread in a popular publication when you can release your own form of marketing online for free? More than that, through social media, studios and their directors can get an incredibly early idea of the sort of feedback their project is going to get from the public.

In 2012, The Dark Knight Rises managed to gain an insane amount of buzz when Christopher Nolan and the Warner Brothers studio released the first two minute trailer, totally unprompted, online. Later, the first few minutes of the film was released online prior to its full theatrical release. The internet went crazy and for several days, most social media platforms were drowning in talk about the movie.

Small businesses can implement these same types of reactions on a smaller level. Sure, you may not have the power and pocketbook of a Hollywood movie studio, but when you learn how to best approach your audience, a simple blog post or video posted on YouTube can go viral in a matter of hours. Never before have small businesses had a better chance to reach a more massive audience.

To neglect social media is a mistake. In fact, organizing your social media strategies and establishing an online presence should be one of the initial steps you take in forming your business. You may not get Batman-like results, but you have to start somewhere.