Integrating Social Media Into Your Small Businesses?

Growing link between social media and small businesses

A new study by Smith School of Business at The University of Maryland on the relationship between small business and social media has concluded that Social Media rates in the U.S. have reached 24%, primarily through Facebook and LinkedIn, an increase of 8% from 2008.

The December 2009 report surveyed 500 small business owners and found that one in five small businesses are have integrated social media into their marketing mix. In fact, 45% of surveyed respondents even believe their social media initiatives will pay off financially in 12 months or less.

As the graphic below details, the small business owners who are using social media are primarily engaging in social media through company pages (75%) and status updates (69%) on Facebook or LinkedIn. However only 16% of the business owners surveyed admitted to using Twitter as a customer service channel.

The report also shows that small business owners now believe social media can help them generate leads. While half of surveyed respondents found the time it takes to use social media sites more daunting than expected, 61% are still putting in the hours and making active efforts to identify new customers.

Despite there still being a need for traditional advertising and press releases, social sites such as Twitter and Facebook allow a whole new type of communication to take place that has previously been unknown to most businesses. Because of this it is even more important for business to not only get a large number of fans or followers, but also follow through on the opportunity to make more genuine and direct connections with customers.

We are now in the age of open communication, engaged dialogue, and transparency and business success may now have less to do with the size of ad budgets, but on the quality of interactions with customers – especially before these customers forge relationships with your competitors.

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