The internet has seen a shift of small business advertising budgets movig from traditional print media, tv, and radio to internet advertising and search engine optimization. But hold on to your hats, because now small business advertising models are shifting again with the increasing popularity of social media platforms like twitter and facebook.

If you are wondering how on earth social media and social networking could possibly affect your business, then watch the video posted below – it’s excellent and worth your time to watch. If nothing else it will surely give you some ideas to pump up sales with your local business.

Some noteworthy points from the video:

• 300,000 businesses have a presence on facebook
• Gary Vaynerchuk grew his family business from $4 Million to $50 Million using social media.
• Companies with the highest levels of social engagement have seen an 18% boost in business, and those without have seen an average loss of 6% of revenues.
• Lenovo has experienced a 20% net reduction in call center activity as customers go to the community website for answers instead.
• Dell sold $3,000,000 worth of computers through Twitter
• Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate positive ROI
• 37% of Generation Y were aware of the new Ford Fiesta via social media before it’s launch in the U.S.
• 25% of Ford’s marketing spend is on Digital / Social media (and they are the only U.S. Auto company that didn’t take a government loan during the latest financial crisis).
• Intuit tax software creators introduced a live social community into their TurboTax products and as a result see unit slaes increase by 30% each year.
• Web host provider MoonFruit spent $15 k on social media marketing and as a result received 300% increase in web traffic and 20% increase in sales
• Customer support costs = $12 per contact via a tradional contact center, but only 25 cents via self service websites
• 71% of businesses plan to increase investement in social media by an average of 40% because it is a low cost marketing method, and it gets a lot of traction.

Thanks to socialmediabuzzer.com for pointing me in the direction of this video in the first place.

Related posts:

1. How to Use Social Media for Marketing Local Businesses
2. Why do Local Businesses Still Insist on Using the Yellow Pages for Marketing
3. Why Bother Integrating Social Media for Your Business?
4. Using Social Media to Effectively Build Brand
5. Small Business Marketing – Cost Per Acquired Customer

Tagged as: small business marketing