A whopping 64%of businesses are now investing in social media marketing, with the sites of choice being Facebook (83%) Twitter (80%) and Linked In (80%). Did you know that 82% of social media leads are now coming from Twitter?

So if your business isn’t on it, you need to be considering it!

The word is that businesses are planning to increase their social media budget this year to nearly half of their overall marketing budget! Of course, smaller businesses can find that social media can be very cost effective at getting their message out there.

For small businesses, it seems their Top 3 Marketing Goals are:

1)      Generating Demand/Customer Acquisition (69.3%)

2)      Increasing Brand Awareness (17.6%)

3)      Customer Retention (13.1%)

So why does your business need to invest in social media? Here are just a few reasons….

• Branding and SEO
• A Personal Connection with Target Customers
• Building Trust
• Creating Authority & credibility
• Finding out what’s going on in your market / industry

Social networking is now helping to put the “human” back in businesses again. Businesses are using it to show that they care about their customers and engage with them.

With a social voice, informal is perfectly acceptable and having a social voice, as opposed to just a generic “brand voice,” is an important step when connecting with potential customers and showing your brand personality (Brand Me). Prospective customers want to connect with businesses who think just like them.

Tell us how you have used social media in your business this year…