Planning Is Everything With Social Business

Laurie McCabe blogs about a recent survey of small and medium business owners about how they are using or perceive social media. The results underline the importance of planning to ensure optimum results from social media programs, McCabe says.

"Good plans shape good decisions. That’s why good planning helps to make elusive dreams come true. Lester R. Bittel, The Nine Master Keys of Management

This seems to be especially true when it comes to getting business value out of social media. We recently wrapped up fielding for our joint SMB Group-CRM Essentials '2011 Small and Medium Business Social Business Study,' in which we surveyed 750 SMB (small business is 1-99 employees; medium business is 100-999 employees) decision-makers regarding their use, plans and perceptions about social media.

Although SMB interest and adoption of social media to assist with a variety of business functions—from generating leads to product devlopment—is sky-rocketing, the question remains of how and where SMBs are actually deriving business value remains. Our study took an in-depth look at the specific activities and functions that SMBs are using social media for."