​“About 61% of small businesses don't see any return on investment on their social-media activities… Yet, almost 50% say they've increased their time spent on social media, and only 7% have decreased their time.”

A recent article from USA Today pointed out that many small businesses aren’t seeing the value in their social media marketing efforts, although most have increased or maintained the time they spend with social media.  The most cited goals were to acquire and engage new customers, gain leads and referrals and boost awareness.

Social media’s been referred to as a made-for-small-business channel with its ability to establish and maintain relationships with passionate customers, something small businesses have in spades compared to large corporations.

So what’s missing? Where’s the gap? I’d argue that there’s a misunderstanding of what social media marketing involves and what it’s good at because for every small business out there that feels social media’s been a failure, there’s another using it successfully. Maybe we need to reset our expectations.