I read a recent blog post about a coffee shop increasing its clientele thanks to Twitter (and my own thanks to Rachel Reuben for pointing me in the right direction). It’s a great example of businesses engaging their local community through social media, and a great poster child for ROI in social media. Yet as encouraging as this example is, there’s another way this business and others like it could increase its customer base and profits while reaching out to…

This is a guest post from Elaine Young, who I have had some great conversations with recently about small business and social media. Elaine has some interesting views on why so many small businesses aren’t using social media, and I asked her if she’d share them with you. 2008 was the year that Twitter saw adoption grow at an astounding rate. Facebook surpassed 150 million active users and blogging become what seems to be a social norm. But does that…