Largest Social Media Study to Date Released – What Does it Mean for Small Business?

What does the new study mean for small business entrepreneurs?

Business.com released their 2009 Business Social Media Benchmarking Study yesterday.  The study, conducted during August of this year, is the largest to date polling nearly 3,000 business professionals from the United States and Canada.

Vice President of Marketing for Business.com, Ben Hanna, Ph.D., said:

This survey was a way for us to benchmark where businesses, and business people, are finding value in social media in order to further enhance our site offerings and better serve our users.

The key findings of the study are discussed below.

Who is Using Social Media?

The study found that consultants and marketing communications professionals were the most active users of social media.  This was particularly true with what they labeled as micro (less than 10 employees) and small (10 to 99 employees) businesses.  Ironically, the most technologically savvy, IT professionals, had the lowest participation rate.

Among those who are currently utilizing social media in their day-to-day jobs, 62% visit company or brand profiles on social networking sites.  And 55% use these sites for research on company information.

Businesses and employees reported that they are facing a massive learning curve with social media.  In fact, the average company in the survey is planning, developing, or running seven different social media initiatives.  Around 71% of the companies surveyed, and 65% of the professionals staffing these initiatives, had less than two years experience with social media.

Why are Businesses Using Social Media?

Despite the huge learning curve, the study showed that businesses are banking on social media to help them with two main objectives.

First, they want to use social media to build brand awareness.  With the recent success at the box office of Paranormal Activity, they certainly seem to be on the right track.  This movie was filmed on a tiny budget, and marketed exclusively through social media outlets.  Paramount mainstreamed the advertising efforts recently, but only after seeing how wildly successful it was in limited theaters across the country.

Second, they want to utilize social media to build their brand reputation.  As we have seen in recent presidential elections, the influence of bloggers and other social media outlets can quickly capture a news cycle.  The speed at which this information can bounce around to millions of people makes traditional forms of public relations almost obsolete.  Social media serves as listening posts for companies to gather feedback, and to engage in the conversation while it is happening rather than responding on the evening news.

The largest complaint that companies reported is that they have little to no insight into how well they are performing against these objectives.  Lack of standard and easily accessible reporting is to blame.

What Type of Social Media are Business Professionals Using?

It seems that the overwhelming majority of those surveyed, 69% of participants, turn to webinars and podcasts for business information.  The past few years has seen a huge spike in both video and audio on social networking sites.  In fact, YouTube is now the 4th highest site in the world for web traffic.

Above YouTube, at the number two spot, is Facebook.  It is the dominant social network for consumer-focused companies with 83% of participants having at least one profile on Facebook compared to 45% on Twitter.  Business-to-business companies, however, maintain profiles on both networks with 77% on Facebook and 73% on Twitter.  Twitter is the 14th highest ranked site for web traffic in the world.

The current trend of companies restricting their employee’s access to social networking sites like these may need to be reconsidered given the value in this type of activity.

What Can Small Business Owners Learn from this Study?

Small business owners should be encouraged by the results of this study.  With a little guidance and hard work, they can have just as big of megaphone as large corporations.  Social media is turning traditional advertising on its head.

It is no longer necessary to have a large advertising budget to be able to market your business, services, or products to millions of people around the globe.  Five of the top fourteen websites in the world for internet traffic are social media networks.

The learning curve may be steep, but as a small business owner you have a very focused niche and audience to reach.  You are much nimbler and can react faster than large corporations.

In this David vs. Goliath battle, small business has the edge – at least for now.

Related posts:

1. Is Small Business Saying No Thanks to Social Media?
2. What are People Saying Online About Your Small Business?
3. 5 Ways to Tell if Your Small Business is a Social Media Lemming?
4. Is Your Small Business Taking Googlebot by the Hand?