80% of small and medium businesses will use at least one social media channel for advertising and promotion in 2017. That was one of the takeaways from the opening session of BIA/Kelsey’s NEXT conference in Boston when analysts from BIA/Kelsey gave their predictions for 2017 and the next few years. According to BIA/Kelsey’s Senior Research Analyst, Suzanne Ackley, 69.0% of SMBs in Wave 17 (Q3/2013) of the Local Commerce Monitor survey of SMBs used at least one social media channel for advertising and promotion. That number increased to 77.6% in the recent Wave 20 (Q3/2016)… a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 4%. BIA/Kelsey expects that the growth in social media usage will continue in the future, reaching 80% in 2017.
Mitch Ratcliffe, Mark Fratrik, Rick Ducey, Suzanne Ackley and Celine Matthiessen
