I was reading an article published in Ad Age recently. In it the author noted that even though we have witnessed the democratization of media with the emergence of the web and especially social marketing, which has created many more “on ramps” for smaller companies, it appears that the bigger companies are outperforming the smaller ones in social media marketing!

And its just not a matter of resources and scale. Yes of course the bigger brands will always have larger budgets and therefore more resources to manage, run and monitor social media 24 / 7. But I think its much more than simply a matter of resources.

Lets face it, the bigger brands are more willing to experiment. They are faster to develop test plans to see what works best and determine where to commit the resources.

But this should not be a discouragement for small business. The fact is small businesses will always be more flexible, more nimble and be able to react faster to market conditions. By definition small business should be able to truly capitalize on the opportunities of social media marketing. Its perfectly suited for the entrepreneurial character of small business! So whats the hold up? Whats stopping small business from aggressively pursuing social media strategies and tactics, and integrating social networking into their business strategy?

The author in the article I mentioned earlier suggests a “ crisis of imagination”. He proposes that small business needs more creativity. Better ideas is what’s needed. To be honest, I am not too sure about that. I think small businesses have tons of creativity. Its’ what propelled them into business in the first place.

I think small business just needs to get off the fence. Drop the ‘wait and see’ approach. Technology is moving at the speed of light. The social media platforms which were perhaps a consideration in 2010 are now a ‘must have’ in 2011! Make no mistake, if you are not engaging your audiences on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. your business may be irrelevant by 2012. New technologies will bring even newer challenges. Witness the evolution of social location (Solo) sites like Foursquare, and the crowdsourcing deal-a-day sites like Groupon. Social media is not a fad and its not going away.

Small business have a competitive advantage in their ability to move with speed, pace and passion! its time to use the entrepreneurial spirit and creativity inherent in the small business DNA to embrace social media marketing today!