A new study tracking the use of social media to promote small businesses in the U.S. seems like a lesson in counterintuitive thinking; while 88% of small businesses believe that social media does or will impact their business, a full 67% of those same businesses have no plans to make any additional investments in social media during 2012. The study, from SocialStrategy1 and Office Arrow, also found that Facebook was considered the social network of choice by most companies (61% are signed up, compared with 48% on LinkedIn and 37% on Twitter), with most companies looking to use social media to build their brand awareness among users. But only up to a point–anything more might involve additional investment, and that’s just not in the cards for another 12 months.
