A recent study by BIA/Kelsey’s shows that more small to mid-size businesses (SMBs) plan on using social media/Web 2.0 in the next 12 months. While the current usage reported in this study seems low with only 23% using social sites and blogs and 29% using ratings and reviews sites, if we were to apply these percentages to the 29.6 million SMBs in the US, that’d be around 6.8 million and 8.5 million respectively.

Participants in the study said that 32% of them expected to start using social sites and blogs and 39% of them expected to start using customer ratings and reviews within the next 12 months.

Companies in the study that were three years old or less had a much higher percentage of those using or planning to use social media while more established businesses that were 11 years or older were more hesitant.

There are many studies out there regarding business and social media and many show different percentages of use.  The biggest factors for the difference in results tend to be the people surveyed and the actual focus of the entire survey.  Surveys on social media use given to marketers will have much higher percent of those saying they use social media then a survey from a bank focused on overall costs to small businesses in general.

While you take each one with a grain of salt depending on those and other factors, the key trend among all of them is that the use of social media and content to build brands is increasing.  Whether it’s those already started doing more or those that are a little hesitant looking to start, companies’ marketing resources are moving away from traditional direct marketing to social media.

Does your company fall within this trend?  If not, please share why.

In January this year, I did a post called “B2B Is Not Just The Big Guys” based on a post from Chris Brogan around B2B vs B2C.  The whole point I made in my comment on the post was that most people automatically think of huge enterprise companies when they hear “B2B” and that’s just not the case.  Granted, that’s where the big money is scored but when you look at large corporations as a percentage of all businesses out there, they are less then 1%.  That’s not a typo.

If you check out the US Office of Advocacy website, they define small firms as companies with 500 employees or less. 

Here’s some stats on small business in the US:

• In 2008, they represented 99.9 percent of the 29.6 million businesses
• Employ just over half of all private sector employees
• Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll
• Have generated 64% of net new jobs over the past 15 years
• Create more than half of the nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP)

Only 18,000 of the 29.6 million businesses were large businesses.

As you can see, the vast majority of B2B is comprised of small businesses and entrepreneurs that are out there looking for products and services to help their business and we believe a majority of those professionals are touched and reached via social media just as in B2C. They don’t have an RFP process or a long buying cycle and they want to know about the quality of the solution from other customers via ratings and reviews without going through the solution provider.  They also want to be educated but not led by the solution provider.

We’d love to hear from others that cater to small businesses and entrepreneurs in B2B. Please tell us what you think.

(Photo by tedreese via Flickr – Kids at Work 2007 091)

Should we use social media for our business? “Ehhhhh, I’ve heard about it but I don’t have time, it doesn’t matter.”  This is a common answer and social media may not be for everyone but I really believe a strong majority of small-mid size companies can benefit if a well developed strategy is created, not to mention you can save some big marketing dollars!  But, before you can ever get to that point, how do you show it’s value?  Here’s a few tips for business on utilizing social media:

You need a game plan: Let’s face it, the web is big and there’s a lot of content out there.  What will make your social strategy work?  The best way to get the most out of social media is to plan out what your doing.  Most importantly, post highly valued content to a niche market.

Define some social media objectives: The more specific the better.

1. Increase customer engagement
2. Higher ROI
3. Better customer service
4. Stronger community
5. Brand awareness

Lay it out:

1. Do the step by step grunt work up front
2. Who in the company will represent your brand?
3. How often should we use social media: Hour by hour, every day, once a week?

Narrow your search: A local mom & pop can create a Twitter account and use www.search.twitter.com, type in keywords related to their business and start chatting! Find people who are interested in your service or product and follow them.  The easiest way is to just jump right in.  Here is a great article on everything Twitter.   But, if this is not enough, use http://search.twitter.com/advanced to narrow down your search based on geographic radius(15-50 miles), certain words, specific dates, or even attitudes! Yup, Twitter can measure attitudes.

Build your community! You can’t snap your fingers and have 15,000 people following your blog and 2,500 Twitter followers over night. It takes time, but what’s more important than numbers are relationships.  Who are you talking with, are you re-tweeting their stuff, do they know what you do? What value are you providing to your readers?  Twellow is a great resource to find people with similar interests, it’s basically a Twitter directory.

Where are your customers hanging out? Digg, Facebook, Blogs, Friendfeed, Delicious, Twitter?
In our previous post we touched on Twitter (B2B and creating relationships), Linked in( Recruiting and personal development) and Facebook (B2C and social, not yet seen as a B2B powerhouse but has potential). It would be impossible to act on every social platform, so choose wisely.  Develop a specific plan which provides value to a niche demographic, as Seth Godin say’s, “you can’t be everything to everyone.”

What’s your strategy? Give feedback and tips on your companies successes and failures!

The current social landscape is evolving.  As a small to mid size business, the ability to listen, monitor and engage customers is more important than ever.  Why?  Because the millions of people (many of which may be your customers by the way) are using multiple social platforms every day. What if they are talking about you? Good, bad, happy or unhappy, customers are voicing their opinions. According to The Future Buzz, the number of Tweets to date is 1,111,991,000. The number of users who log on to Facebook at least once each day is 100,000,000 (Total Facebook users will reach 300 million by 2010).

Now, we aren’t listing shock statistics just to get your attention (did it work though?)  The bottom line is that the rapid growth in social media should be seen as an opportunity for small to mid sized businesses, and a prompt to create a social media strategy for your business as easy as “Monitor & Engage” (ME).

Monitor: The social web is expanding and it’s important to know what is being said about your brand.

Google Alerts are easy, convenient & free. Here’s how it works: Google alerts will scour the web, blogs, news videos and groups for mentions of your choice, then aggregate and organize the information for you.

1. Set up alerts with your companies name, industry keywords or even major competitors
2. Be specific to your industry
3. Set the notification as it happens, daily or weekly
4. Create an RSS feed so all the alerts come to you

Search.twitter.com is a search engine just like Google but it will only scour Twitter to see what people are talking about.  According to Nielson, between Feb 08 and 09, Twitter grew at 1,382%.  Of which, the primary age demographic is between 35-49.

1. Type your companies name, your name, industry, or buzz topics
2. See what people are talking about relevant to your business
3. If you find a worthy Tweet, friend the person or company and introduce yourself!

Engage: Once you see who’s talking about you, engage them!

Social media is all about communicating and creating relationships.  If a customer is unhappy with a product ask them why.  See if there is anything you or your company can do to fix this issue.  They will be very impressed that your company took the time to address them on a personal level.   If they’re a raving fan, thank them. It’s common manners that go a long way. Word travels fast on the web.  The more willing you are to share, Re-Tweet and communicate with your readers, the more likely they’ll help you.

This is only a basic list of services, please feel free to connect with me at twitter.com/brettkopf. As always, we welcome feedback and comments!

More and more small businesses are starting to get involved with social media and use it as another channel to communicate with their customers and prospects.  There are two major reasons for this:

• Money: Using most social media is free or with fees that are a percentage of most advertising options
• Easy of Use: Business owners don’t have to have an IT team on staff to use social media.  They can read various blog posts to learn how to make the most of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other platforms and learn how to make the most of them fairly easily.  That said, do not mistake ease of use for not needing a marketing plan or dedicating the appropriate amount of time.

The charts from eMarketers’ study of Small Businesses show that they are currently using social media mostly for networking, research and connecting with clients.  We believe that these trends will continue to grow and also that the SMB market will see significant growth in sharing and promoting their business solutions and references in manner that’s helpful to prospects without being as forceful as advertising. 

Please let us know your thoughts!