Small Businesses Seeing Business Value from Social Networking

3 Comment(s) | Posted Mar 3, 2010 by Peter Wylie
Peter Wylie

Peter Wylie

Small businesses doubled their use of social media in 2009, according to a study by the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business.  Only 12 percent of small businesses had adopted social media as a marketing or customer service tool in 2008.  In 2009, 24 percent of small businesses reported using social networks.

The majority of small businesses that have begun interacting on social networks have established a company page on Facebook and LinkedIn and are posting content to these platforms.  Twitter and blogs are being used less frequently, as only 39 percent of small businesses using social media have started a blog and 26 percent interact on Twitter regarding their industry.

What’s most encouraging about the study’s results is the impact businesses are seeing from their social interactions.  50 percent of the businesses surveyed said their social media programs are at least breaking even and an additional 22 percent have made or will make a profit this year through social media.

Small businesses like Naked Pizza, based in New Orleans, are seeing real value created from social media interaction.  The company has 7,300 followers on Twitter and it reported that 20 percent of its roughly $1 million in sales come directly from messages on the social network.

61 percent of the businesses in the study using social media reported they have already identified and attracted new customers using social media.  How can your small business begin to leverage social media to grow revenue?

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  1. social marketing services

    March 27, 2010 6:20 AM | Permalink

    Very informative article. I got lot of knowledge about this.
    thank you.

  2. John McCullough

    April 07, 2010 11:23 PM | Permalink

    I've talked to a number of small businesses that haven't explored social media due to the simple fact that they don't understand it. Most admit that they are too busy running their businesses to learn the pros and cons. There needs to be more easily digestible case studies and success stories to whet the attitude of millions of small business that would significantly benefit from a well crafted social media campaign.

  3. Pete Wylie

    April 08, 2010 8:37 AM | Permalink

    John,
    Education about the benefits and mechanisms of social media campaigns is a large part of our client engagements. Business owners rarely have a lot of time to seek out the pros and cons, so we try to package that into material that can be digested easily for good context. We also try to highlight case studies and best practices here on our blog for easy reference.
    Thanks for commenting,
    Peter

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