Virgin Rockets Towards New Worlds for Small Business Marketing

A new survey reveals the latest small business social trends, while Virgin changes the game and American companies scramble to boost business continuity plans.

A new study from Manta shows:

·         25% of small business owners plan to invest more in social in 2013

·         50% of small business owners report spending more time on social than last year

·         10% of small business owners spend more than ten hours a week on social

·         40% of small business owners are seeing a positive ROI on social media marketing

This week’s horrific tragedy at the Boston Marathon was a big wake up call to companies whose business continuity and emergency plans have been lacking. Hitting the web and doing more in the cloud to be able to maintain operations during disasters are crucial as is diversifying locations of physical business assets.

However, we are no longer just talking about global Internet marketing or forwarding inbound leads to call centers to off shore locations. A successful test flight of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo last week promises to catapult us to a whole new frontier. This isn’t just about intergalactic vacations at $200,000 a pop, it opens doors to all types of commercial activity in space. Expect the next generation of hot new companies to come from international space stations.

Who will launch the first startup from space? Who will dominate their niche in space? When we begin living off of this planet for extended periods of time, will social media even matter anymore? Think as big and as far forward as you can, keep working to increase your social media marketing ROI, but don’t neglect your most proven and precious tool for connectivity; your phone service.

Toll free services will keep your business connected in the direst emergencies, help to keep productivity high, keep orders flowing no matter what disasters strike or terror threats are made regardless of whether you are in Boston, on a floating entrepreneur-ship or likely even if you are vacationing in space.

Plus, now that one pilot has broken the conspiracy, giving the green light for cell phone use, inflight marketing might just be best new profit center for many small businesses.