I feel like I’ve seen this phenomenon in action, and Brian Solis adds data to it with some nice pie charts and all in his post “Almost Half of Small Businesses Find Customers in Social Networks” today. He says:

Regus, a provider of workplace solutions with over 1,100 business centers in 85 countries, recently published a study that explored the role of social media in customer acquisition. Based on input from senior managers and business owners around the world, the study found that almost one-half of small businesses are successfully connecting with prospects through social networks. On the other side of the spectrum, only 28 percent of large firms reported finding new customers in social networks. Medium-sized businesses landed appropriately in the middle at 36 percent.

The illustration here is from that post:

pie chart

(Image credit: thanks to Brian Solis)

Tim BerryTim Berry

Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry.