Facebook Still Ripe for Small Business Marketers

Facebook still holds big potential for small business marketers.

A study by the Pew Research Center's Internet Project shows that Facebook remains the most dominant social networking platform and is a place small businesses should still be devoting their online marketing efforts toward. Specifically, 71 percent percent of online adults are now Facebook users, a slight increase from the 67 percent who used Facebook as of late 2012.

Besides being the most commonly used social network, Facebook also has high levels of engagement among its users. More than 60 percent of Facebook users visit the site at least once a day, with 40 percent doing so multiple times throughout the day.

Despite Facebook's continued popularity, adults are branching out when it comes to their social media use, with more than 40 percent regularly using multiple social networking sites. The research discovered that other sites have developed their own unique demographic user profiles and should be drawing attention from businesses looking to attract new customers.

Pinterest holds particular appeal to females, with women being four times as likely as men to be users of the virtual pin board site. LinkedIn is especially popular among college graduates and Internet users in higher income households, while Twitter and Instagram have particular appeal to younger adults, urban dwellers and non-whites.

Among those who use only one major social networking platform, 84 percent of those surveyed say that Facebook is the site that they frequent. Additionally, 8 percent use only LinkedIn, 4 percent stick to Pinterest, and 2 percent each say Instagram or Twitter is their sole social networking site.

Even though Instagram and Twitter have a significantly smaller number of users than Facebook does, their users are nearly as active as those on Facebook. The study shows that 57 percent of Instagram users visit the site at least once a day, with 35 percent doing so multiple times per day. In addition, nearly half of Twitter users are daily visitors, while 29 percent frequent the site multiple times a day.

The study was based on surveys of more than 1,800 adults over age 18.

Originally published on BusinessNewsDaily.