by Deanna Ting.

To help small business owners better understand the do’s and don’ts of creating their own online promotional videos, public relations experts Larry Cardarelli and Jackie Dowling recently offered their personal tips and advice on “Beyond PR,” a blog dedicated to highlighting communications tactics and trends in public relations, investor relations, social media, search engine optimization and content marketing.

Read the rest of this article from Travel Agent Central.

This article was written for eMarketer.

eMarketer estimates that 127 million people in the US, or 57.5% of internet users, will use social networks at least monthly this year. Facebook alone has over half a billion active users worldwide. Still, many of the smallest businesses don’t believe their customers can be marketed to on such sites, according to an August 2010 survey from customer review platform RatePoint.

Read the rest of this article from eMarketer.

The source for this report is “Engaging Small Businesses Through Social Media.”

“The latest research report from Business.com shows that small business owners are still trying to figure out Twitter … but those who have mastered it are seeing an advantage.

The expansive report covering 1,711 small business decision makers showed that of all the social media channels, Twitter was the least-used. Just 27 percent of the respondents were active on the micro-blogging site.

But even that figure may be deceptively high – the survey sample was of business leaders already using some form of the social web.  Translation: This is why you are still getting blank stares when you talk to most small business decision makers about Twitter.”

Read this article from Business Grow.

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This article was written by Matt Silverman.

“Over the past year, Mashable has written extensively on the value of social media to small businesses. We have also contributed regularly on this topic to the American Express Open Forum

From the fundamentals of Twitter branding, to the importance of blogging, to getting work done with some great online tools, small businesses face many challenges when trying to understand how to use social media. However, taking the time to learn how to leverage social media and technology to benefit your business will pay big dividends in the long run.

Whether you’re just signing up, or primed for some advanced social marketing, the posts below have all the tips, tricks, and wisdom you’ll need to take your brand to the next level.”

Read this article from Mashable.

“A growing number of businesses are making Facebook an indispensible part of hanging out their shingles. Small businesses are using it to find new customers, build online communities of fans and dig into gold mines of demographic information.

“You need to be where your customers are and your prospective customers are,” said Clara Shih, author of “The Facebook Era” (Pearson Education, 2009). “And with 300 million people on Facebook, and still growing, that’s increasingly where your audience is for a lot of products and services.”

Read this article from NY Times.

“Three-quarters of small businesses say they have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn helpful for generating business leads or expanding business in the past year, according to a survey conducted for Citibank Small Business of 500 U.S. businesses with fewer than 100 employees.”

Read this article from Times Live.

“Twitter, the 140 character phenomenon that has adults speaking in acronyms, URLs shortened and roughly 6 million unique visitors has connected thousands upon thousands of people in different ways. Users of Twitter engage in conversations about various topics – people that never would have connected if it were not for Twitter. The Twitter language of hashtags, @username has become so popular that Facebook has incorporate the @username into messages. How many times in an email have you hit return to send it or referred to someone with their Twitter name? I know I have!

I get asked a lot if anyone really doing anything besides Tweeting with friends about interests? Are businesses really able to get new customers/clients. ABSOLUTELY! So, how do businesses use Twitter?”

Read this article from Kherize5 Blog.

“I thought this was an interesting article. I’ve been running on both cylinders, so I saved the link so I could post it here. The title captures it. Facebook is a friend to small businesses. You really don’t need it if you’re a large brand. However, even large brands see the value of having Facebook fan pages. I

f you’re a small business and you’ve got to realize that Facebook now has not just college students. Facebook now has your friends, your parent’s friends and, much to the dismay of many, your parents. The bottom line is your customers are on Facebook and they actually join Facebook fan pages.”

Read this article from Organic Social Media.

“Social networking sites are quickly becoming one of the most important places where retailers can meet potential customers and interact with their current customer base. According to a new report from eMarketer, social network users are a lucrative target demographic because they are more likely to make online purchases than any other group.

About three-quarters of all the retailers in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide maintain a presence on at least one social network. Facebook, YouTube and MySpace are the most popular social networking sites for online retailers.”

Read this article from Read Write Web.

“We get so caught up in the daily life of running a business, it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees.

Not that you have a choice! You’re fighting fires, handling a pissed-off customer, rending your face over an emergency bug-fix, the website just went down, and the accountant is coming tomorrow and the books are in shambles.

All normal. But still every month or so it’s nice to take a step back and see whether you’re missing a chance to make a more meaningful change to your business.

Here’s some things you can do…”

Read this article from Small Biz Trends.