According to BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor, Wave 18?, 72.2% of the SMBs (small- to medium-sized businesses) surveyed* use Social Media to promote their business. Of the different social media used for advertising and promotion that BIA/Kelsey tracks in the LCM survey, Facebook Page ranked the highest, followed by LinkedIn and Twitter. Facebook ads were close behind in fourth place. Instagram and Pinterest, which didn’t make the chart below, are achieving traction — each has close to a 10% reach.

Social media can provide SMBs with an immediate and interactive connection with their customers. So how do SMBs perceive the return on their investment for time spent in advertising or promoting themselves on social media? In our survey we asked several questions on the satisfaction of the various advertising and marketing choices made. It should be noted that only SMBs who reported using a particular media were asked for their ROI assessment of that media.

While only 15.2% of SMBs surveyed reported using Facebook ads to advertise and promote their business, they gave it the highest combined ROI of Excellent (10-19x spend) and Extraordinary (more than 20x spend) of the social media in the survey, at 37.3%. Instagram and Other Social, which 8.1% and 5.4% of SMBs surveyed, respectively, reported using for advertising and promotion, tied for the next highest combined ROI at 30.6%, followed closely by Twitter ads at 30.5%. Instagram and Twitter ads both had more respondents rating them Extraordinary than Other Social. LinkedIn, which was second among SMB users, was ranked lowest of the social media, with combined perceived ROI (Excellent and Extraordinary) of 18.6%.

SMBs in our survey on average spent 21.4%, or $7,638, of their annual advertising and promotion budget on Social Media players, such as Facebook and Twitter.

Local Commerce Monitor? (LCM) is BIA/Kelsey’s ongoing survey of the advertising behaviors of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). To learn more about our LCM survey, click here.

*From the Full Sample.

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Pinterest has “hundreds of thousands of small business, with thousands signing up every day,” according to Joel Meek, head of partner online sales and operations at Pinterest. Yet the social bookmarking site is still in the early stages of making money off SMBs.

Meek was speaking this morning at Leading in Local: Interactive Local Media, here in San Francisco. Pinterest doesn’t currently have a reseller program, but according to Meek, “it is something that we are thinking about.” Pinterest has recently added the position of head of strategic partnerships for the SMB channel.

Pinterest’s scale is impressive, with 30 billion pins to date, 750 million active boards and activity growing by 25 percent every quarter. Pinterest has 66 million monthly users, with 48 percent of women ages 18-54 on Pinterest. Additionally, Meek says one-third of millennials are on Pinterest. Businesses are critical to the platform, with two-thirds of pins coming from businesses.

Meek said small businesses in creative fields in particular — photographers, designers — are using Pinterest to drive sales. He cited the example of an interior designer who pinned examples of past work, which led directly to a $40,000 bathroom design/remodeling job.

Pinterest’s ad products are similar to Facebook’s — “Pin It” buttons, promoted pins and paying to amplify a pin’s distribution (akin to boosting a post on Facebook). The amplification product has both CPM and CPC pricing models.

The company is trying to make itself a welcoming platform for SMBs. Meek said Pinterest is trying to make the SMB experience dead simple. It recently launched a self-serve ad product, and a simple sign up experience. “We know small businesses still need help. We want to make sure that one step away there is someone at Pinterest if they need help.”

Pinterest is also testing a conversion pixel to more accurately measure return on time and dollars. “Sentiment and anecdotes are very strong,” Meek said. “What we need to do is measure it more accurately.”

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The end of the year usually means a few things to us: the holidays; our annual predictions; and Leading in Local: Interactive Local Media, the industry’s flagship event.

This year’s event is especially hot — a 2 1/2 day extravaganza taking place Dec. 3-5 in San Francisco. More than 50 speakers have been recruited by the analyst team, and we’ve added some great extra-curricular activities, including a Tech Expo with top companies showing off their wares “Before The Bell” on Day 1; a Women’s Leading in Local networking event on day 2; and an International Roundtable.

Here’s our newest news: BIA/Kelsey Analyst Emeritus Matt Booth (currently CEO, Connectivity) is coming back to moderate one of two Executive Sessions with Google leaders. We’ll kick off with Managing Director of Global Channel Sales Todd Rowe, than go deep in conversations with Head of premier SMB partnerships Christine Merritt; Adwords Express Product Manager Francisco Uribe; Google My Business Senior Product Manager James Croom; and Global Business Leader for Google Shopping Max Frause.

We also have feature presentations set by YP CMO Allison Checchi; Deseret Digital Media CEO Clark Gilbert and President Chris Lee; Yodle CEO Court Cunningham; Pinterest Head of Partnerships Joel Meek; and Salesforce VP Randy Wootton.

We are also set with a great discussion between me and Business Book of the Year Winner Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. And then there are the feature presentations by First Data SVP Krish Mantripragada; InfoGroup CDO Matt Graves; and Go Daddy SVP Raj Mukherjee. And we’ve also got a great, seven company Superforum dedicated to local’s most important issue: “Make the Phone Ring.”

There’s so much more. Check out the Full agenda. Register here.

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When it comes to local shopping, female consumers interact much more on social media than their male counterparts. According to BIA/Kelsey’s Consumer Commerce Monitor™, 49.1% of females interact with or use social media regarding local purchases compared to only 37% of males. Seventy-one percent of women cite Facebook as their preferred social media site for local shopping. Women also strongly value the opinions of the Facebook Friends with 51.9% considering them to be a trustworthy or very trustworthy source of information for local products and services. Men were not as quick to trust their Facebook Friends with only 44% considering them to be a trustworthy or very trust worthy source.

Women are also heavy general users of social media sites. Approximately 77.4% of women actively use Facebook while only 63.3% of men do the same. Pinterest is dominated by females with three times more women actively using it then men.

Social media is not the only way for local businesses to to reach female consumers.  Women are also active on their mobile devices. In my previous blog post I discussed that men were more engaged than women on their mobile devices and are more willing to try the new and exciting technology that is emerging on the local front, but more women use their mobile devices for local shopping more than men in general. About 39.1% of women use smartphones when shopping locally while only 34.8% of men do the same. Women are also using their mobile devices on the go much more than men. Approximately 74.8% of women use smartphones in store as opposed to 58.8% of men, 72% of women use them in public as opposed to 64% of men, and 66.1%  of women use them in transit as opposed to 51.5% of men.

To learn more about women and their shopping habits check out BIA/Kelsey’s Consumer Commerce Monitor page.

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