A survey from Newtek Business Services found that 57 percent of small businesses use social media marketing to find and engage new customers.

As part of its Small Business Authority Market Sentiment Survey, Newtek Business Services found that 57 percent of businesses use social media marketing to find new customers and 58 percent actively engage with customers to boost visibility and brand accessibility.

Additionally, 55 percent of 2,200 companies polled said they believe social media is a “significant engine of sales growth” in their company.

Newtek believes its poll demonstrates that social media marketing is a largely effective channel for companies of all sizes. Beyond the increased opportunity for customer engagement, Newtek said that social is simply less expensive than other channels and provides benefits others cannot offer.

Barry Sloane, chairman and president of the Small Business Authority, says, “[Social media] is clearly the most cost effective, efficient utilization of the internet particularly for a small, independent business owner [who] does not have huge resources in staff or dollars.”

While Newtek studies small businesses exclusively, enterprise-level corporations have also found social to be a beneficial element of their marketing strategies. Brafton recently reported that Coca-Cola is among the most active and successful large companies using social media. Thanks to user-generated content and original videos posted through social channels, Coca-Cola has surpassed 20 million Likes on Facebook.

Joe Meloni is Brafton's former Executive News and Content Writer. He studied journalism at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has written for a number of print and web-based publications.