5 Trends That Will Shape Small Business in 2012

Extracted 15DEC2011 from http://socialmediatoday.com/ducttape/404763/5-trends-will-shape-small-busines...

Social networks evolve into markets. As social networks become more important in the lives of their users and the level of social behavior continues to evolve, they will become much more than outposts. These sites will move toward wholly functioning, self-contained marketplaces...

Content becomes conversion. Most small-business owners have come to see content as strategy, rather than merely words to be produced. Blog posts, white papers and in-person and online seminars  create awareness, build trust, educate and illustrate core stories...

Mobile powers local. Every age demographic is using mobile devices to locate local businesses and those people intend to purchase...

Customer service goes community. Small business will embrace the community in a peer service-provider model and start providing service in public-facing, brand-building ways. They will embrace tools that turn customer service into a shared community model, where customers help answer questions and evangelize the products and services.

Search moves to apps. Apps inside social networks provide answers. Apps inside social-bookmark sites serve up interesting reading. Apps in content-curation tools like Storify provide relevant context for content...