Survey: More Small Businesses Flock To Social Media For Low-Cost Marketing

Social media is a savior to small business owners, many of whose chief complaint about marketing is high-costs. However, while many are increasing their social media presence, a recent survey shows they may be missing out on the newest social media marketing outlets.

MerchantCircle’s survey of 8,500 U.S. small and local business owners found more are currently using Facebook for marketing, 70 percent of respondents, than those that are using Google, 66 percent. That marks a 20 percent increase in small businesses using Facebook from MerchantCirlce’s 2010 survey.

Twitter also saw 8 percent growth in small business use since the fourth quarter of 2009, with 40 percent of respondents to this year’s survey reportedly using the microblogging site for marketing purposes.

These tools are becoming so popular among small businesses simply because they lack the resources for major marketing campaigns. More than half of the survey’s respondents spend less than $2,5000 per year on marketing. High costs are small businesses’ main issue with online marketing, as cited by 26 percent of respondents. Because of this, another 60 percent said they have no plans to raise their marketing budgets this year.

“Online marketing continues to be a challenge for most local businesses, and many merchants are working with very small budgets and almost no marketing resources,” said Darren Waddell, vice president of marketing at MerchantCircle. “The marketing methods we see gaining the most traction are therefore the ones that offer merchants simplicity, low costs and immediate results.”

Similar to the reluctance to social media in its early days, small businesses are wary of new avenues through which social networking sites are accessible, according to the study. Mobile marketing and group buying, made famous by Groupon, have not caught on among small businesses that may lack the resources to adopt their campaigns for the technology. Less than 15 percent of respondents are currently involved in mobile marketing or advertising and just 11 percent have used a group buying service. And, while 20 percent plan to use group buying in the next few months, 55 percent of respondents that have used the service said they will not do it again.

Social media marketing exploded in the U.S. last year. Research firm HubSpot found $1.7 billion was spent on social media marketing in 2010, 53 percent of which was devoted to Facebook marketing.

By Priscilla Aderman - Spetnik Technology News