There seems to be somewhat of a shock wave going around the web, due to the startling revelation that 68% of small businesses have no plans to adopt “Enterprise 2.0″ initiatives.

Here’s a look at a chart from the Forrester report.



I know what you’re thinking. Wow, 51% of employers with 20k+ employees are already planning to adopt Enterprise 2.0, yet only 20% of those with less than 99 employees are planning the same.

I know what else you’re thinking. What the heck is “Enterprise 2.0″ anyway?

I certainly didn’t know what the term meant, and perhaps small business owners either don’t know what the term means either or they see “enterprise” and just assume it doesn’t apply to them.

Here’s how Forrester defines Enterprise 2.0 (via RWW):

Well, what it doesn’t include is consumer services like Blogger, Facebook, Netvibes, and Twitter, says Forrester. These types of services are aimed at consumers and are often supported by ads, so they do not qualify as Enterprise 2.0 tools.

Instead, collaboration and productivity tools based on the concepts of web 2.0, but designed for the enterprise worker will count as being Enterprise 2.0. In addition, for-pay services, like those from BEA Systems, IBM, Microsoft, Awareness, NewsGator Technologies, and Six Apart will factor in.

When you see the definition, it makes perfect sense why 68% of small businesses don’t have plans to use Enterprise 2.0 in the future. They’ve realized that they can better-and freely-reach their customers by using the abundance of “consumer services” available to them.

Let the big corporations spend their billions of dollars ($4.6 billion by the year 2013) trying to build a better mouse-trap social network to attract new customers. In the meantime, small businesses will continue to head to the places where their customers already hang-out.

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About the Author: Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world's most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian. You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.