MerchantCircle released its latest Merchant Confidence Index with just under 10,000 SMB respondents. The part of the survey data most interesting to me is the following:
Social networking has eclipsed all other marketing channels . . . More than 50 percent of respondents plan to create or maintain a social networking presence for their business (other than MerchantCircle) in the next three months, as compared to 41 percent in March 2010. Previously, email marketing to customers had been the most popular planned marketing technique.
Foursquare awareness doubles in 3 months. Today, 16% of surveyed merchants are familiar with Foursquare, compared to 8% in March 2010. Awareness of Yelp has grown nearly 10% (39 March 2010, 48% today). 27% of merchants have heard of Groupon.
Social usage growing. 32% of merchants that are aware of Foursquare are using the service to promote their business, compared to 25% in March 2010. 46% of those who are aware of Yelp use its services (flat since March). 11% of Groupon-aware merchants use it to market their business.
Twitter has become a household name among the local business community. 92% percent of merchants report they are familiar with the micro-blogging service and usage has grown by 8% in 3 months among merchants.
These survey data are from among MerchantCircle’s members/audience, which tends to be “more social” than the broader SMB market. However they are consistent with what I’m observing via independent surveys and elsewhere.
Here’s discussion of the survey population and survey methodology:
This third Merchant Confidence Index survey was fielded online, between June 28 and July 5, 2010, and sent to a random sample of MerchantCircle’s member base of over one million local business owners. There were 9,874 total responses from local business owners across the United States. Just over 11 percent of responding businesses classified themselves as professional services, while just under 90 percent fell into other categories, such as retailers, legal and financial services, automotive, health and beauty, entertainment, travel and more.
