For almost 6 months now, I’ve been firmly entrenched outside the social media industry, having gone to work for a new start-up, Kutenda, that’s built an online marketing suite for the small business market. As we get ready to launch our product commercially next month, I thought I’d reflect a bit on working outside the social media frenzy that I had been a part of until February of 2009.

Working for the first time for a company driven to help small business, I find it really interesting to take a peek back into the enterprise social media space every now and then, because that reality is so different from your average small business. Sure, you hear of success stories from small businesses successfully using Twitter – occasionally.  More often you hear about large enterprises and what they are doing in social media — and learn how labor-intensive it is.

With Twitter going mainstream, its alot harder to hear signal in all that noise. There are many more blogs now too, most of which are abandoned. I wonder, if Jeff Jarvis was blogging about his bad customer service with Dell today, how loud would the signal be? Not as loud as it was 2005, because frankly, there were a lot fewer blogs back then.  Sure, Dell was tracking what they said, even then, but the whole movement of using social media for corporate transparency was only an idea floated from The Cluetrain Manifesto.

Just look at how fast the Motrin Moms fiasco disappeared. Its barely a blip on the radar, and I am certain didn’t cause as much damage to Motrin and Jarvis did to Dell.

Jarvis was an influencer in social media and gained that stature before there were too many of them. Now, there are more. And, as most people realize, only the few gain something monetary from being Internet famous.

What does any of this have to do with small business? Alot. Most small business people don’t have experience promoting their businesses online, much less getting involved in some way with social media. And, dear social media friends, the answer for most isn’t “every business should have a blog” or “you need to get involved with Twitter.” These people are trying to figure out why they are spending $6K or more a year on a Yellow Pages ad that gets them no business (hint – no one looks at them anymore).

Frankly, for most businesses – and I know this is even the case for large businesses – if companies did a better job with search marketing, they’d waste less money, cause less frustration and get a better return on investment. This is one of the key things we are hoping to help small business discover – and they’re in a better position than the IBM’s and Dell’s of the world, because small business is more niche. They don’t have to worry as much about scaling their efforts, because they are looking to influence in a much smaller sphere. Typically, a local market.