Social media marketing on the rise in United States

In the past 1 year, there has been a 39% increase in the number of local businesses using social networking sites to market their products, according to the quarterly Merchant Confidence Index survey of more than 8,500 small and local business owners across the United States. Today, 70% use the social media site of 500+ million accountholders, compared with 50% last year, the report said.

This makes Facebook the most widely used marketing method among local merchants, with 66% of local businesses tapping Google to educate consumers about their goods, according to the study.

Perhaps Facebook's name-recognition and its immediate integration with the social media site helped propel the company's location service past competitor Foursquare: 32% of respondents use Facebook Places, and another 12% said they plan to use this tool in the coming months. By comparison, Foursquare use is up only 2% from last year, with about 9% of those polled using this service, the study found.

Twitter is gaining traction among local businesses, with almost 40% of those queried now using the microblogging site to build awareness and community, up from 32% in the same period a year ago, said MerchantCircle.

So where are the companies going to market there brands?? The trend of marketing professionals moving out of traditional ways of marketing to new way of social media is on the high. Needless to say that all companies has recognized the power of online customer. They can either build or destroy any brand within no time. So watch out guys...