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Not in the least. After a couple of years of Social marketing I have noticed that most of the communication and pitching back and forth is between marketers, public relations, bloggers and social media "experts". Very little communication coming from main street or the primary businesses that generate revenue outside of marketers.

Could not agree more, Dan Collins.

Small business is too busy making a living. On a serious note, many just don't understand how to use twitter and the power of social media. Not surprised by this at all.

No,not surprised at all. My recent experience with a small business was that they were clueless as to the power of social media. I think more will eventually catch on as they realize they are missing the boat.

People think they are "too busy" to handle their Social Media Marketing...

its likely Small Businesses don't have a worker with the expertise to use Social Media effectively. Expect to see this change in the next 10 years.

My wife has run a home-based business for eight years. I've been nagging her for the last year to make more use of social media. I finally helped her build a Facebook fan page and use it to publicize an open house she was having. She was astounded to make a sale within one hour of the post and two sales and two catalog requests in the following forty eight hours.

Oh, by the way. None of those was a "marketer" or "so-called social media expert."

What a sad statistic! Small businesses are truly losing out as a result.

I work with small businesses that are actually weathering the storm thanks to sensible, integrated and cost effective online strategies and social media participation policies.

This not surprise me. I run a Small Businesses in Mexico and is commond to think this is expensive. A good friend of mine is a IT Consultor and show me there are a very efective and not cost tool for small businesse and we started using this. Now I have remote clients that think my company is bigger than the real.
But I have to force myself to dedicate 1 hour per day to do this.

Social media is mostly hype from social media consultants.

Hmmm are they counting Real Estate Agents as small business owners? What about the IT Consultants? Local restaurants? What is the criteria for a small business? It seems like there are a ton of small business owners, but maybe that is just who I am following?

I don't think it's just social media, many still don't even have a website. If they understood the power of search engines they'd change this. Using social media/blogging/participating is 100% worth the time (and is generally free!)

I think up to now social media has been a case of preaching to the converted - business coaches/marketers/the mlm and affiliate marketing crowd all pitching to each other.

However, as more and more transactions take place online I feel there is a very slow shift to small business owners beginning to understand that having an internet presence is about a lot more than putting up a static website that is little more than a signpost for their business.

I belive the next 5 years will see more and more small business owners turning to social media as a way of engaging with new and existing customers.

not surprised one bit. Small businesses generally do not have the manpower, funds to pay for SM or the time to do it themselves. They do see the value as the results are not immediate like traditional media can be. Before long more and more companies will come on board as their competitors will and they will follow suit. Once social media becomes the real cool kids table everyone will adopt.

Many small businesses are still relying on things like phone book listings and newspaper ads, so this does not come as a surprise at all. However, they could leverage the web in a huge way. Unfortunately, most people simply don't know what to do.

SM = massively, massively overrated -unless you have some dedicated real savvy full time employee who drives the channel, who can write and knows how to deliver real value devoid of prima facie self interest.Otherwsie, for the avarge SME, it is just too complex to sift through the options and takes too much time to be dedicated to crafting content of value for your audience. Most of the marketing acheived ends up being just noise to people who are not really listening. Most Tweets are seen as self-serving or impossible to comprehend without link clicking. Why bother? There's no shortage of pages on the web so why should an incomprehensible yell out of thin air command your attention? As for Twitter followers - COME ON! You invest oodles of time in following and being followed by 100,000 people. Do you really believe anyone is reading your stuff? Like all fads, this too, will pass.....

Such a diversity of opinion here! I'm noticing that small businesses are beginning to understand there's a value to social media. When I meet with a prospect or an existing client, they ALWAYS ask if there's anything to Facebook or Twitter.

Social media can eat huge chunks of time. No argument there. But it can also be handled efficiently by the business owner. How hard is it to post a daily status message update to a Facebook page? Or to pop into Twitter to chat with the local crowd once or twice per day?

The local business owner doesn't need thousands of followers or fans and doesn't need to follow thousands of people to see results from social media. Just start small, budget your time wisely, and learn as you go.

Most small business owners I speak to, do not understand the power of social media. They do still view social media as communications among teens and people who talk about what their eating for lunch. Small businesses are too bust to educate themselves. I offer free consulting as a way to educate small and independent business owners.