Welcome Back, Blogger – An Untweetable Story

Dear DBE Blog –

It’s been a while since last we connected. To be honest, I found someone else who made it easier and faster to tweet - I mean share - information. But now I’m back (see I didn’t forget your password) because something important has come up that requires more than can be handled in 140 characters.

Citibank and Gfk Roper recently released results from a survey of 500 small business executives under a headline that I find to be a misleading conclusion. Furthermore, buried in the story is information that I think is far more relevant and valuable for readers. Let’s start with that:

“The survey found that general search engine sites such as Google and Yahoo! trump small business-focused sites and the WSJ.com as destinations for small business owners to seek business advice or information. 61% of respondents say they rely on these search engine sites…

…42% of small business owners and managers reported that in the past year they have made greater use of their company's website to generate business leads and sales. Among companies with 20-99 employees the percentage rises with 57% saying they have made greater use of their website.”

The misleading headline is that small businesses are “not joining the social media conversation” citing that 76% have not found social media outlets to be useful for generating business leads/growth.

Excuse me, but isn’t it more significant that 24% of small businesses are finding social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to be helping their business?! Doesn’t that positive interpretation of the data seem more in line with the other data showing small businesses are relying more and more on the internet?

Of course, my conclusion is that smart companies are finding competitive advantage through integrated use of findability tactics including search engine optimization, paid search and, yes, social media marketing.

Feel free to draw your own conclusions. Click http://ow.ly/udtN for the press release.

P.S. to Blogger: Thanks for posting all 2,019 characters at one time and hope you understand that I couldn’t resist using the url shortener. As a reward, I’m going to treat you to more readers by tweeting about you…