Let’s take quick look at the state of small business social media marketing. A recent Forrester study has some startling results showing many small businesses are still not adapting to the advantages and power of social media and social marketing. The study, commissioned by Act-On Software – a CRM provider for the Fortune 5,000,000 (love that line) has more relevant and valuable findings than your  typical SMB survey.

Let’s review some of the key points from the study:

• SMB marketers are not sure about social. Use of social media was near the bottom of the list of deployed marketing tactics with only 69% of SMBs reporting that they use it for new customer acquisition. Further, SMB engagement with social media is far below that of their larger enterprise confederates (e.g. 48% use Facebook vs. 66%; 51% use LinkedIn vs. 66%; 51% use Twitter vs. 74%)

It is clear larger firms have embraced social media because it works and SMB’s still have a lot of room to grow. Less than half of the SMB industry is on social media and are missing not a just great opportunity but actually losing ground on what is the future of digital and SMB marketing period.

• SMBs are spending a higher percentage of revenues on marketing than their large enterprise brethren. And, although are more leanly staffed, they tax their teams with comprehensive go-to-market programs that utilize a similar set of tactics and techniques to their counterparts in large enterprises.

This was an interesting overall finding that actually surprised us. Marketing expenses making up a larger percentage of revenues than big brands points to the fact that embracing social media now is even more critical for the small business. Smart use of social media can reduce actual expense outlay while driving better results.

• Top performing SMBs are significantly more bullish than bottom performers, with far fewer having cut their marketing budgets in response to the economic downturn (33% vs. 56%). Also interesting, nearly twice as many increased budgets (27% vs. 15%)!

Reinforcing the age-old adage that you can’t cut your way to success, this finding validates that effective marketing investment pays off in growth and success.

A few more nuggets from the study include good advice on initiating social media marketing, driving new leads and utilizing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools which are much more accessible and affordable today for a SMB than just a few years ago.

The Forrester report from Act-On includes many more valuable findings and is definitely worth a read for those wanting to get a better grasp on the big picture for small business marketing. And in addition to their terrific slogan about the Fortune 5 Million – we really like the canine themed graphics on the Act-On Site too. 🙂

image credit: Act-On