Small Business Embracing Social Media

The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research recently released a longitudinal study examining Inc. 500 social media usage. The key result is in early 2008 77% of the companies surveyed were using online social media.  This is is up from 57% in 2007. 

The study was conducted by by Eric Mattson and Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D., a Senior Fellow of the Society for New Communications Research.  The chart below, which is taken from the report, shows social media usage by type for both 2007 and 2008 (click to enlarge).

The Inc. 500 consists of small, fast growing, private US businesses.  These firms tend to be very successful and and innovative.  They tend to adopt technology earlier than the average US small business, but the list represents a wide range of industries and company sizes.  It is a good proxy for early and early majority small business technology users.

As this and other studies show, social media use by small businesses is growing very rapidly.  While small business has traditionally been viewed as a late adopter of technology, an increasing number of small businesses are both early adopters and sophisticated users of technology.

Disclosure: I am a board member and Senior Fellow at the Society for New Communications Research.