Digital platforms have given small businesses access to customers, audiences and infrastructure they could once struggle to reach. The risk begins when that access becomes dependence. For local trade businesses, a more resilient strategy combines platform reach with digital assets they can control.
By Mark Evans
A local roofing company might receive enquiries from Google Maps, Facebook, a trade marketplace and word of mouth. On paper, that looks like a well diversified marketing strategy.
Look more closely, though, and most of those routes may still depend on digital infrastructure controlled by somebody else.
Google controls how businesses are presented within its products. Meta controls the environment in which Facebook and Instagram audiences are built. A trade marketplace sets the rules governing its profiles and interactions. Even a recommendation from a previous customer will often be followed by an online search before somebody gets in touch.
None of this makes those channels bad. Quite the opposite. They can be remarkably effective.
The more useful question is what the business itself is building while using them.
That is where the platform trap begins.
Platforms solved a real problem for small businesses
Digital platforms have lowered barriers that once made marketing much harder for small companies.
An electrician can appear when somebody nearby searches for help. A landscaping company can turn completed gardens into a visual portfolio on Instagram. A roofing company can collect reviews. A builder can join a marketplace where customers are already looking for contractors.
For smaller businesses, this matters.
The OECD notes that platforms can help SMEs extend their market reach, access digital services and avoid some of the costs involved in building equivalent infrastructure themselves. [1]
Platform adoption is therefore not a strategic mistake. Businesses use these services because they solve genuine problems.
The issue begins when access to customers gradually becomes dependence on the organisation providing that access.
When convenience becomes dependence
Researchers studying what they call platform dependent entrepreneurship have examined businesses whose commercial opportunities are significantly shaped by digital platforms.
The business can gain significant value from a platform without having much influence over how that platform operates.
Depending on the service, the platform may influence how participating businesses are displayed, how customers find them, what information is available, how interactions take place, what fees apply and what rules participants must follow.
Research by Donato Cutolo and Martin Kenney describes an underlying power asymmetry between digital platforms and the entrepreneurs that depend on them. Their argument is not that platforms inevitably harm participating businesses. It is that the platform and the business do not have equal control over the relationship. [2]
A 2024 systematic review of platform dependent entrepreneurship reached a similarly balanced conclusion. Platforms can create significant entrepreneurial opportunities while also shaping participants’ market access, visibility and commercial options. [3]
Translate that into a local trade business and the issue becomes straightforward.
If a plumber receives half of all new enquiries from one source, that channel has become commercially important regardless of whether the relationship is currently working perfectly.
That is concentration risk, not criticism of the provider.
Three platforms do not necessarily mean three independent assets
One obvious response is diversification.
Researchers use the term multihoming for participating across several platforms rather than relying entirely on one. The systematic review by Yu and Sekiguchi identifies this as one of the ways platform dependent businesses try to preserve greater autonomy. [3]
For a builder, that might mean maintaining a Google Business Profile, posting projects on Facebook and Instagram, and appearing on a trade directory.
Clearly, that is less concentrated than relying entirely on one source.
But there is another distinction worth making.
Channel diversification is not the same as asset development.
Channel diversification asks:
Where can customers discover us?
Asset development asks:
What are we building that continues to have value across those channels?
Consider a roofing company with hundreds of completed jobs behind it. Its evidence might exist as scattered Facebook posts, Google reviews, marketplace photographs and messages exchanged through third party systems.
The work is real, but very little of that accumulated experience may have been organised into something the company can present on its own terms.
Being visible in several places and building assets of your own are related strategies, but they are not the same thing.
Rented reach and owned presence are not the same thing
A useful way to think about this is rented reach versus owned presence.
Google, social networks, directories and marketplaces provide rented reach. The word “rented” is not intended negatively. Their value comes from the fact that somebody else has already built the technology, audience, reputation systems and discovery mechanisms.
Businesses gain access to infrastructure they did not have to create themselves.
Owned presence serves a different purpose.
For a local service business, that might include its brand, domain, website, service information, project archive, photography, useful content and direct enquiry routes.
Even “owned” requires qualification.
A domain still depends on registration infrastructure. A website needs hosting. Organic discovery may depend heavily on search engines. An independently operated website does not somehow make a company independent of the wider internet economy.
The difference is relative control.
A business has far greater freedom to decide how its own services are explained, which projects are featured, how information is organised and where prospective customers are directed next.
Reach can be rented. Presence should accumulate.
What a business actually gains from its own website
This is why the useful role of a business website has little to do with the old idea of simply having an online brochure.
Its strategic value is that it can provide a common digital base behind several different acquisition channels.
Consider a landscaping company.
Instagram might be the ideal place to publish an image of a newly completed garden. Its website can hold the complete project: photographs, the original brief, the services involved, the location, related work and a route for somebody considering a similar project to make an enquiry.
Google Business Profile might help somebody discover a roofer and provide useful reviews and location information. The roofer’s website can then explain roof repairs, reroofing, flat roofing, leadwork, emergency services, coverage areas and what happens after a prospective customer gets in touch.
The same principle applies to location specific search. A regional contractor does not have to rely entirely on a directory or map listing to explain its relevance to a particular area. Pearce Elite Construction, for example, uses a dedicated builders in Bridgend page to bring its local services, surrounding areas, completed project evidence and enquiry information together on its own domain. That page can then continue supporting customers who first encounter the company through search, referrals or another platform.
The requirement will vary enormously by business.
A sole trader might need a relatively concise site explaining services, previous work and contact options. A regional contractor may need case studies, recruitment information, accreditations, several service areas and far more detailed content.
For a trade focused provider such as Toolbelt Websites, the useful role of the website is therefore broader than publishing a few company pages. The site can bring service information, project evidence and direct enquiry routes together behind the search, social and referral channels that initially create discovery.
The website does not need to replace those channels.
It gives them somewhere independent to lead.
The objective is resilience, not platform exit
Research into platform dependence does not point towards the simple conclusion that businesses should abandon intermediaries.
That would often make little commercial sense.
A 2025 study by Lukas Fitz and Jochen Scheeg examined 14 German SME cases dealing with power asymmetry in digital platform relationships. The businesses used approaches including participation across multiple platforms, direct activity outside platforms and other strategies intended to manage dependence. The researchers also acknowledge the limits of drawing wider conclusions from a qualitative sample concentrated in one country. [4]
For a local service company, the practical model can be much simpler.
There is the discovery layer: search engines, social media, directories, marketplaces and referrals.
There is the business’s digital base: its brand, domain, website, services, project evidence and useful information.
Then there is the direct relationship: enquiry, conversation, quotation, customer, review, referral and repeat work.
Each part has a different role.
A marketplace may be excellent at introducing a customer to a plumber they had never heard of.
Instagram may be excellent at getting a landscaping project in front of thousands of local people.
Google may be the quickest route between somebody discovering a leaking roof and finding nearby roofing companies.
Those channels do not need to disappear for the business to become more resilient.
The aim is simply to avoid making any one of them the entire digital presence of the company.
A simple platform resilience test
Local businesses do not need a complicated scoring system to understand their exposure.
Seven questions are enough to start a useful conversation.
Where did our last 20 genuine enquiries originate?
Not impressions, followers or website visits. Actual prospective customers.
How dependent are we on the largest single source?
There is no universal percentage at which reliance suddenly becomes dangerous. The objective is to understand how concentrated acquisition has become.
If that source became less effective, what would prospective customers still find?
Would there still be a recognisable business, useful information, completed projects and a straightforward route to make contact?
Can somebody fully understand what we do without viewing a third party profile?
A marketplace listing may work perfectly well for initial discovery while still being a poor place to explain a complex extension, renovation or roofing system.
Are our best projects and evidence stored somewhere we control?
Years of completed work can become an increasingly useful body of proof rather than disappearing down a social media timeline.
Can customers contact us through our own enquiry routes?
Those routes should, of course, be operated with appropriate privacy and data protection practices.
Are we building something durable from today’s marketing activity?
A company can generate enquiries year after year without building many digital assets it can reuse, improve and carry between channels.
A completed project can become a case study. A common customer question can become useful guidance. Strong photography can continue supporting the business long after the original social media post disappears from view.
Over time, that accumulation matters.
Use the platforms. Build the asset.
Google, social networks, directories and marketplaces can remain valuable parts of a local business’s marketing mix. Their role is to provide access and discovery where they perform that job well.
Alongside them, the business can continue accumulating its own brand, service information, project evidence, useful content and direct routes to enquiry.
That creates a healthier relationship between platform reach and business control.
A company does not need to retreat from the platforms its customers already use. It simply needs to ensure that years of marketing, completed projects and customer attention are also contributing to something that remains useful beyond a single channel.
The more useful question is what remains when each platform has done its job.
References
[1] OECD (2021). The Digital Transformation of SMEs. OECD Studies on SMEs and Entrepreneurship. OECD Publishing, Paris. DOI: 10.1787/bdb9256a-en.
[2] Cutolo, D. and Kenney, M. (2021). “Platform-Dependent Entrepreneurs: Power Asymmetries, Risks, and Strategies in the Platform Economy.” Academy of Management Perspectives. DOI: 10.5465/amp.2019.0103.
[3] Yu, S. and Sekiguchi, T. (2024). “Platform-Dependent Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Review.” Administrative Sciences, 14(12), 326. DOI: 10.3390/admsci14120326.
[4] Fitz, L. R. G. and Scheeg, J. (2025). “Coping Practices of Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises Facing Power Asymmetry in Digital Platform Business.” Strategic Change. DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2657.
Author bio
Mark Evans is a digital marketing and web strategy professional with an MSc in Marketing. He works across websites, SEO and customer acquisition, with a particular interest in how small and local service businesses can build stronger digital foundations.
