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MarketingProfs has an article with good, detailed data from a recent study of small businesses, innovation and social media. The headline is Small Biz Report: Social Media Adoption Levels Off , which at first glance may cause some to think “uh-oh,” the bloom is off the rose. The article offers insight into a study of 500 small businesses, conducted by Network Solutions and the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business.

You can’t read too much into one report or study, but I think there’s a silver lining here: small businesses are getting more savvy about social media, how to use it, and figuring out what works best. My hunch is that the SMB world will break down into those who market online with varying degrees of success, and the “left behinds” — those who didn’t try, or gave up and are no longer on the radar. So take note — the clock is ticking, it seems.

Of those using social media, 30% plan to increase “investment” in their website because of it. This means that about one-third have figured out that social media investment = website reinvestment. The two feed each other and are connected.

Of those using social media, there’s been a 37% increase in brand-awareness usage in the past 9 months, and a 34% increase in using social media to reach out to customers. At the same time, using social media to get leads has stayed the same or decreased. Here’s how I read this: Generating leads is a difficult task for any organization and is time/resource-intensive to do — for any business large or small. Small businesses are figuring this out, and shifting to where they get more “bang” for their social media “buck”: in creating awareness and building loyalty.

And, as I’ve suspected, companies that were identified as “highly competitive,” by no coincidence, spend more in online advertising and a whopping 72% say they expect to make a profit from their social media investments.

Again, you can’t read too much into one study, but it does seem to confirm that SMBs are getting past the “adoption” phase. In the new phase, successful online marketers will start to “walk away” from those that don’t.

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