Facebook Outpaces Google as a means for Merchants to Market Their Local Business

According to a new survey conducted by MerchantCircle, Facebook is the favorite online marketing service of small businesses, and Facebook Places is doing quite well, too. 37 percent of the respondents defined Facebook as one of their most effective tools.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Facebook has now outpaced Google (66 percent) as the most broadly used marketing method amongst local merchants. Facebook is seemed as the most popular way for merchants to market their business, with 70 percent using the social network for marketing, up from 50 percent one year ago.

MerchantCircle survey also shows more than half of local businesses are spending less than $2,500 a year on marketing, and what's more important, 60 percent have no plans to increase their budgets in 2011.

Marketing budget: What is your annual ad/marketing budget?

Most effective marketing channels: Select the top THREE most effective marketing or advertising methods your business uses or has used.

Three of the top marketing methods for local businesses — social, search and email — are also cited as being the most effective, with 36 percent putting social networking in the top three, 40 percent citing search and 36 percent choosing email marketing.

“Online marketing continues to be a challenge for most local businesses, and many merchants are working with very small budgets and almost no marketing resources,” said Darren Waddell, vice president of marketing at MerchantCircle.

“The marketing methods we see gaining the most traction are therefore the ones that offer merchants simplicity, low costs and immediate results.”