Did you know that less than half of small businesses use social media to market their business?  That's what a recent survey from the small business insurance firm Hiskos says.  According to the survey, 47% of small business owners rated social media as “unimportant” in their marketing efforts.  Of the 53% who use social media – only 12% use it regularly.

What this means for you… is that if you are a small business who markets online, you have a huge advantage — here's why.

According to Google:

-70% of Americans look at product reviews before buying a product
-79% of consumers use their smartphones when they are shopping
-83% of moms go online to do further research after seeing a commercial that interests them

A recent Neilsen report revealed that Americans spend a quarter of the time they spend online reading social networks and blogs.

As to why more small businesses aren't using social media, I think that business owners just don’t know where to start. There are so many ways to build a community, business owners can get overwhelmed by the possibilities, thinking that either they need to spend a lot of time or spend a lot of money to be successful.  As those of you know have worked with me know, you can make a lot of marketing headway by taking the time to set up your systems (We do this together  during my virtual day training) and then spending a small amount of time each day maintaining those systems.

Hiring a social media manager is another way to have a great social media presence without spending a lot of time.  A few weeks ago, I wrote this post  about the questions to ask when hiring a social media manager.  The Global Social Media Managers Association matches business owners with social media managers and is a great place to start your social media manager search.