SMEs Look to Facebook and LinkedIn for Lead Generation
According to eMarketer, Social media is becoming more popular among US small-business owners and many will be spending more on advertising, marketing and new business development in 2011, which will also impact the amount of resources devoted to social media.
More than 55% of small-business owners view Facebook as somewhat or very beneficial to their business, according to data from Ad-ology, which surveyed 752 US small-business owners. Other sites, such as Twitter and LinkedIn, also received nods from small-business owners, while group-buying sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial were lower on the list.
Additionally, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all saw significant increases in the percentage of small-business owners who view them as beneficial compared to last year. In the prior year’s survey, only 33.2% of respondents called Facebook somewhat or very beneficial, and only 18.5% said the same of Twitter.
Just as several social media sites are useful to small businesses, there are also many objectives companies find social media outreach useful for. Lead generation was the top benefit reported, selected by 57.2% of small-business owners. Ad-ology also found 54% of small-business owners highlighted monitoring what is being said about their businesses. Improving customer experience was another reported benefit of social media.
In a separate survey, Manta, an online community for promoting and connecting small businesses, found that 42% of small-business owners consider social media useful in connecting with consumers. Twenty-three percent of those same small-business owners also reported that they plan to make advertising and marketing their No. 1 priority expenditure for 2011, while 24% plan to prioritize new business development.
As social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn prove themselves beneficial to small businesses within several areas of their companies, small-business owners will keep social media in mind as they plan to increase spending in 2011.
Source: eMarketer
Posted in: Social Media, Social Media Statistics
LinkedIn Partners With Twitter For Live Status Updates
LinkedIn, the professional social network, has partnered with Twitter to allow members to share status updates between their LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.
The integration of the two networks through the Tweets app lets members of LinkedIn automatically share their updates on the professional network with their Twitter followers.
They can also select Twitter status updates to share with their LinkedIn network by adding the #in hashtag to tweets on the micro-blogging site. LinkedIn members will be able to track and manage their Twitter feed from within their LinkedIn profile.
LinkedIn has 51m members, including 11m in Europe and almost 3m in the UK.
The new feature will be available to all LinkedIn members globally over the next few days.
Posted in: General
