<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"As the November elections approach, politicians will likely focus on several key issues, including job creation, particularly for small business owners. The small business sector represents 65% of the economy \u2014 and owners of these businesses are wise to the importance social media can play in promoting their businesses. \nRadius, a company providing sales intelligence for the small business market, released a report ranking cities based on the social media usage of its small business owners. \nSan Francisco tops the list of places with the most socially connected small businesses, with Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., coming in second and third, respectively. Overall, West Coast cities ranked higher than those on the east coast, with New York coming in seventh and Boston not even making the top 20. \nBut some East Coast and Midwest cities are making strides to stand out on social media:\n\nGrand Rapids, Mich., (29%) and Oklahoma, Okla., (28%) have the highest percentage of SMBs with Facebook pages.\nBuffalo, N.Y. (20%) and Rochester, Minn., (20%) have the highest percentage of SMBs with Foursquare check-ins.\n\nSmall businesses in the top 85 U.S. cities are ranked according to the Radius Social Index, which is comprised of social media presence and daily deal activity. Radius monitors and collects information from more than 15 million small businesses in the U.S. and measure the activity of those businesses on major social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp and daily deal activity. \n\"It's important for small businesses to utilize social media to engage with customers, develop higher awareness, identify and attract new customers, which can all directly impact the growth of their business,\" CEO and founder of Radius, Darian Shirazi tells Mashable.  \"Being on the social graph also allows for other companies to be more efficient when working with them, since they will better understand the business and be able to offer a wider variety of services.\"\nCheck out the infographic below and let us know what you think in the comments. \n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/06/27/states-social-small-businesses-infographic/>