What Small Businesses Spend On Social Media Presence [Infographic]

I remember a year ago when many companies were still struggling with how to justify hiring a social media manager. The companies who ended up hiring someone often times seemed conflicted about that decision. The companies who decided not to hire someone often experienced social media blunders in front of everyone made by misguided or inexperienced employees. Some companies chose not to acknowledge this issue at, and as a result, they have been unable to capitalize on the benefits of having a strong social media presence.

So how have things changed in the past year? Have most small businesses been able to incorporate this new time consuming task into their daily schedules or are things still a bit hazy? Building a respected and influential social media presence isn’t something that happens overnight, we all know that, so exactly how much time and effort are small businesses putting into it now?

Vertical Response surveyed 462 small businesses to get the answers to these questions. They compiled all their results into this infographic called How Much Do Small Businesses Spend On Social Media?. Bottom line – 66% of small business are spending more time on social media today than they did a year ago. However, many of them are still trying to grasp the added workload. As expected, their focus is mostly on Twitter and Facebook, although they seem to be slowly accepting Pinterest and Google+. Last but not least, 36% of them find that it’s worth it to pay money for quality social media tools. Small businesses also appear to be increasing the amount of money they are willing to spend on their social media presence.

Now that small businesses are getting up to speed with what is really necessary to build and maintain a strong social media presence, being a social media manager is becoming more of an attractive career choice. I remember when I wrote A Day In The Life Of A Social Media Manager about a year ago, and at that time, the job seemed like a bunch of around-the-clock insanity. Now it seems to be settling into a part of the real corporate structure, although finding enough hours in the day still seems to be a challenge. You can read more about this by clicking over the Vertical Response.