Social mediahas become an important marketing tool forsmall businesses, particularly younger firms: 32% of small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs) in operation for 0-6 years use Twitter, compared with just 7% of those in business for 11+ years,according toa report fromBIA/Kelsey. Meanwhile,Twitteruse among SMBs doubled, from 9% in 2009 to 19% in 2010.
The longer a SMB has been in business, the less likely it is to use Twitter, whereas older SMBs (11+ years in business) are more likely to use printed Yellow Pages (37%) than those in business 0-3 years (17%) or 4-6 years (22%).
Below, other findings from BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor study, conducted by ConStat.
Facebook More-Widely Used than Email
Nearly one-half (48%) of surveyed SMBs use Facebook to promote their businesses—even more than the 43% of SMBs that report using e-mail marketing.
Over one in five (22%) SMBs use blogging to promote their businesses.
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Planned Increases of Web 2.0 Technologies
SMBs plan to increase their use of Web 2.0-based tools in the next 12 months:
- 46% plan to aggressively uselinks and ads on social sites and blogsin the next year, up from the 35% that did so in the previous 12 months.
- 39% plan to usecustomer ratings and reviews,up from 29%.
- 32% plan to aggressively usevideo on their own websites, up from 16%.
About the data:BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor Wave 14 was conducted in November 2010 via online survey of 307 small- to mid-sized businesses.
