The Small Business 2012 survey by PeoplePerHour.com reveals that there has been a significant increase of Facebook usage for business purposes amongst SME’s.
The study reveals a 50% rise in small businesses actively using social media to market themselves, find work, and even recruit new staff.
91% of those surveyed revealed they use social networks for business use with only 60 % reporting this in last year’s study. The most popular social media sites were unsurprisingly Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
The report supports a study by Deloitte released recently that claimed the social networking site, Facebook, brings the UK economy more than £2bn a year, and with the majority of the UK’s 4.5 million SME’s integrating social media this may continue to reign true.
Founder & CEO of PeoplePerHour.com, Xenios Thrasyvoulou, believes that the growing use of sites like Facebook by small businesses opens the door for social networking sites to make huge revenue. Thrasyvoulou says that sites like Facebook should be regarded as much more than just a social network.
"There’s a perception that Facebook is almost exclusively used for personal relationships, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. As our survey findings demonstrate, Facebook is an increasingly crucial technology for businesses as well."
The COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg agrees that social media increases business growth. In a statement on Deloitte’s findings about Facebook’s impact on the economy Sandberg said:
"Increasingly, social media means growth and jobs. Social media is proving particularly valuable for small- and medium-sized businesses, which form the backbone of the European economy."
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