As the economic downturn continues to impact marketing budgets, more small businesses have turned to alternative marketing methods such as embracing social media.

According to results from the small business success index, levels of social media adoption increased from 12 percent to 24 percent over the past 12 months.

The research identified that around one in five small businesses owners are using social media in their business, which includes creating profiles on linkedin, facebook and twitter, but also other areas like writing a company blog.

Here are some other key findings:

• 75% surveyed have a company page on a social networking site
• 61% use social media for identifying and attracting new customers
• 57% have built a network through a site like LinkedIn
• 45% expect social media to be profitable in the next twelve months

Among the concerns with social media were the time it takes to create and maintain and online presence, along with the negative criticism which can be associated with some profiles.

If you want to learn a bit more about social media, check out Rene’s Top 10 social media tracking tools from last week.

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