JupiterResearch, a firm that provides information on the impact of the Internet and consumer technologies on business, has found that executives operating very small businesses or micro-business executives are unique when it comes to their online behavior when compared to other online users and business executives.
A new report from JupiterResearch, “Micro-Business Executives: Examining the Online Behavior and Attitudes of Executives from the Smallest Businesses” found that micro-business executives spend a median of 17 hours per week online, compared with 14 hours a week spent watching television.
“Micro-business executives are highly engaged online users and great candidates for behavioral and contextual targeting,” said Sonal Gandhi, JupiterResearch Analyst and lead author of the report. “They are more likely to respond to this type of targeting than the average online user and are otherwise hard to target online.”
JupiterResearch definition of a micro-business is a company with less than five employees and includes sole proprietorships. Their data shows that micro-businesses comprise the majority of the small businesses that are in operation. They also found that while micro-business executives spend more time online than average users that their adoption of tools and technologies such as blogs and social networking is about the same as the online average.
“Marketers contemplating creating content targeting micro-business executives should take note that as online content around business ‘how-to’ information grows, its novelty is likely to wear off,” said David Schatsky, President of JupiterKagan. “Additionally, marketers looking to reach these executives should look into creating community sites, as micro-business executives show a higher likelihood of engaging with them than those from other small businesses.”
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