There is a huge difference between activity and productivity.

• Activity: Doing anything, because you believe as long as you are “stirring the pot” something will happen.
• Productivity: Choosing where and when you commit time and resources based on the expected output.

When it comes to marketing it seems that all too often, small business owners are choosing activity instead of productivity. With all the tools (free and paid) at their disposal to measure their results; Google Analytics, Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook Stats, Raven SEO, or Radian6, it is discouraging how many business owners are still running in all directions, without a real plan or specific objectives.

When we first began to offer social media and content marketing services we wanted to know if the companies we were working with were indicative of the small business community in general. So starting in 2010 we have conducted an annual small business survey looking at the online marketing activities of companies with less than 100 employees.

While there has been a slight increase in the amount of companies calculating their return in recent years,our preliminary survey results show it is still less than 40 percent.

It is nice to see small businesses experimenting with internet tools, but we would love to see more of them having plans and measures in place to get the most from their activities.

What about you? How are you using social media, blogging and email to grow your small business? We want to know. Take the survey now. It will only take a few minutes and we will share the final results later this spring.