According to a survey conducted on 750 SMBs(fewer than 1000 employees), by Zoomerrang and Grow Biz media, the budgets for marketing activities is supposed to increase in 2011.
This is because of the increased expectations on the impact of social media by small business owners and increased return on investment in e-marketing. The marketing strategies for which the budget allocation is supposed to increase are both online medium and print medium, among which the online media acquires high preference, with e-mail, website and social media gaining high priority.
Among the surveyed respondents, 34 percent are currently using social media for their marketing efforts. Of those using social media, Facebook(80%), LinkedIn(37%) and Twitter(27%) were found to be more common.
According to the experts, this present scenario where most of the businesses are opting for social media based marketing strategies, indicates that the small businesses are willing to increase the exposure of their businesses. This trend is also expected to increase the sales of most SMBs, further improving their performance and thereby boosting the overall economy.