SmallBusinessNewz

A new study from BIA/Kelsey found that 32% of small business advertisers plan on including social media into their marketing mix within the next 12 months. It also found that 9% of small and medium-sized businesses are currently using Twitter for marketing.

"Social media is clearly gaining traction among SMB advertisers," said Steve Marshall, director of research and consulting, BIA/Kelsey. "As local consumers
increasingly gravitate to social networks, local businesses understand they need to be part of the conversation. This opens up a market opportunity for local media companies that offer products and services that enable local advertisers to easily integrate social media into their marketing efforts."

The percentages of SMBs by age of business currently using Twitter for promotion are as follows:

- 16% of SMBs in business three years or less
- 11% of SMBs in business four to six years
- 6% of SMBs in business seven to 10 years
- 2% of SMBs in business 11-plus years

A couple of other noteworthy findings from the study are that 39% of SMBs plan to include customer ratings or reviews on their own Web sites, and 31% plan to include links or ads placed on social sites or blogs.

In another article, Doug looked at a few ways businesses are successfully using Twitter and other social media tools. If you are still struggling to find a useful way to use Twitter, you might as well see what these businesses are doing.

For Twitter, you may also want to keep in mind the equation for getting more traffic discussed here, and the upcoming Lists feature Twitter intends to launch soon. This will make managing Twitter accounts much easier.