BIA/Kelsey Research: 9% of SMBs Using Twitter

A BIA/Kelsey press release today reveals data from Local Commerce Monitor, indicating that 9 percent of small businesses use Twitter to market themselves.

Thirty-two percent of SMBs meanwhile intend to use social media in their marketing in the next 12 months. This includes creating a Facebook or LinkedIn account. Also, 39 percent of SMBs plan to include customer ratings or reviews on their own Web sites, and 31 percent plan to place links or ads on social sites or blogs.

Adoption understandably skews toward younger businesses, according to the study. The percentage of SMBs (by age of business) currently using Twitter is as follows:

— 16 percent of SMBs in business three years or less

— 11 percent of SMBs in business four to six years

— 6 percent of SMBs in business seven to 10 years

— 2 percent of SMBs in business 11-plus years

There could be some gray area here, regarding how different businesses answer the question and how they “use” Twitter. There are lots of ways to use Twitter as an SMB, including having a personal account, all the way up to actively trolling for followers and pushing out promotions on a frequent basis.

We’ve explored this trend a bit in the past, and will further drill down at the upcoming Interactive Local Media show, Dec. 9-11 in Los Angeles. This will include the session “Local/Social: Better Engagement Than Search?” featuring Tim Kendall, director of monetization at Facebook, and Kara Nortman, senior vice president of publishing at Citysearch.