• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, November 21, 2013

According to a new study from BIA/Kelsey, small businesses are fully embracing Facebook as a media channel. Facebook executives made it clear on the company’s recent earnings call that they see SMBs ultimately driving big revenues for the social media giant. The data shows that 54.5% of SMBs are utilizing Facebook page for online marketing. Another 38% say they’re likely to adopt it within the next 12 months.

SMB Use of Online Marketing Channels (% of respondents; November 2013)
Property	Currently Have	Don’t Have; Likely in ≤12 Months
Website	60,4%	17.4%
Facebook business page	54.0	14.6
Video on website'	38.6	22.7
Google	36.3	18.3
Landing page	34.9	19.0
Twitter	33.8	15.5
LinkedIn	32.7	22.9
Video on YouTube	30.6	20.2
Mobile website	28.9	26.1
Yahoo local	24.8	18.7
Pinterest	18.8	18.3
Instagram	17.3	18.1
Source: BIA/Kelsey, November 2013

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, emphasized that SMBs make up a large piece of the pie at Facebook: 11 million SMBs, 7 million active with a Facebook page and 3 million of them make at least one post per week. SMB Dan Levy announced at the Local Search Association show that 70% of Facebook users are connected to at least one local business page. And in total, there are 645 million monthly views for these pages.

A Comscore/Neustar/15Miles study, included in the report, showed that Facebook has the second largest app usage for local search, behind only Google. Sandberg mentioned again how targeted ads for SMBs are a big opportunity.

Location Based Mobile Advertising (US $ Billions)
Year	Location Targeted	Non-Location Targeted
2012	$1.22 (38%)	$2.03
2013	2.28	3.11
2014	3.90	4.78
2015	5.72	5.80
2016	7.20	6.90
2017	9.09 (54%)	7.71
Source: BIA/Kelsey, November 2013

The report predicts that mobile ad revenues will surpass desktop ad revenues by the end of the year. Currently, 48% of Facebooks daily active users only use mobile devices while 49% of its total ad revenues come from mobile ads.

Facebook ads report nearly $890 million in revenue during the third quarter through the company’s app install ads, mobile engagement ads, and news feed ads. The right idea, says the report, investing in their mobile platforms to compete effectively with Twitter, whose mobile platform ad revenue ratio is the best of social websites at 70%.

SMB adoption of Facebook outpaces their use of Twitter (33.8%) and LinkedIn (32.7%), according to the BIA/Kelsey data, with more planning to add a presence on LinkedIn (22.9%) than on Twitter (15.5%) over the next year.

Slightly fewer than 1 in 5 respondents said they use Pinterest (18.8%) and Instagram (17.3%), although those figures would rise significantly if others follow through on their plans. That’s because another 18% say they’re likely to add a presence on each of those networks over the next year, says the report.

About 4 in 10 SMBs host videos on their websites, while 3 in 10 post videos to YouTube. Another 1 in 5 are likely to engage in each of those activities over the next year. Videos are one of the most likely additions to the online marketing efforts of respondents to the BIA/Kelsey study. The only channel that more SMBs are planning to add is a mobile website, by more than one-quarter of respondents. Currently, fewer than 3 in 10 respondents have a mobile site, concludes the report.

For more information from BIA/Kelsey, and access to the PDF report, please go here.