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New Data: Social Media More Important to Small Businesses

 

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In 2011, four out of five US businesses with 100 or more employees will use social media marketing. That’s a dramatic change from 2008 when just 42% of companies marketed via social media, according to research from eMarketer. As consumer usage of social media continues to increase in the US and around the world, marketers have transitioned from cautious engagement to full deployment.

Increased use of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn

Small businesses are continuing to increase their use of social media marketing, and now nearly half are using it to find new customers, according to one survey.

The spring 2011 edition of the American Express OPEN “Small Business Monitor” found the use of social media for marketing was up over previous years. More than a third (35%) of US small businesses reported using online social networking for marketing, up from 15% in fall 2009. In addition, 12% of respondents were using blogs as a social tactic, nearly double the figure from fall 2009.

The leading reason for using social media, according to the September 2010 edition of the survey, was to increase the exposure of the business, and American Express OPEN found that more small businesses were turning to social media for customer acquisition. By spring 2011, 44% were using social media to help their businesses, up from 39% in September 2010. They were focusing on the top social networking sites for those efforts.

As a small business, what are you doing to get more customers from mainstream social media networks?

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comments Comments

Posted by Jeanne Hopkins on Mon, May 09, 2011 @ 07:00 PM

COMMENTS

We have a vast amount of knowledge in our field, so we're beginning to share our information and push people to our blog and website. Our calls to action push people to contact us. 
 
Not really a unique plan of action, but a tried and true way of converting social media traffic to sales leads.

posted on Monday, May 09, 2011 at 8:29 PM by Powerserve

I tried to check out the emarketer research, but the link is dead. I can almost guarantee that the 80% figure is wrong, or more likely, not interpreted properly. 
 
What stands out is NOT the use of social media, actually. As a veteran statistical analyst I can tell you the SIGNIFICANT numbers have to do with small business website use. The reason they are significant is that finally, after more than a decade, we're seeing adoption by small business. 
 
Finally, the title is misleading. It's not that it's more important. It's that more businesses are TRYING it.  
 
If you look at the attrition rates for those who tried and failed, particularly small businesses, you'll be shocked at the invisible failures and abandoned accounts, that indicate that over a year, the percent of small businesses that try, and fail and give up is probably upwards of 90% on something like Twitter. 
 
These numbers, to be honest, are misleading, and largely irrelevant for business decisions, as presented, which is also the norm. 
 

posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 10:07 AM by Robert Bacal

Hi there -  
 
@Mike Smith. I will pull the data and get a post up. It won't be exactly comparable, but might be useful information for you. 
 
@Robert Bacal. I fixed the link (which goes just to eMarketer.com) and I'm looking for the actual article so that you can determine if I was "misleading" you. Glad to learn more about how you would approach this information for our readers. 
 

posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 3:58 PM by Jeanne Hopkins

I agree with Robert Bacal. More businesses indeed attempt to try everything that is available out there today not because it is proven to give results, but just because it is out there and does not cost an arm and leg to try. I would like to see too the statistics on actual leads provided by those network and percentage of the leads that resulted in actual business contracts.

posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 8:52 PM by Olga Khusid

Comments have been closed for this article.