How would you define a strong marketing foundation for a small business with limited resources without the utilization of free resources on the internet?

I agree with you that for some small businesses, trying to figure out the right things to market through FB, Twitter and the like can be time consuming, however- it is not wasteful. Marketing on social networking sites is about trial and error (and I'm not the only one who believes this: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/09...). There are no manuals, and no marketers who know the wiser- one of the most brilliant developments of marketing with these sites is how easy it is to be niche- which means that marketing is as unique as it can get. A mass marketer's worst nightmare, but a small business owner's dream. Why not invest the time?

1) Many don’t understand how to do it
2) Others do not know how to do it themselves
3) Those who might be willing to hire someone to assist have no idea who they can trust
4) Most have difficulty staying focused on so many different tasks at once and do not know how to prioritize them.

All we can do is keep encouraging them to select one missing element and work on it until they get it done.

We can also recommend those who deserve to be recommended and assist those who can become deserving enough to make them valuable assets instead of knowing just enough to be dangerous.

On my blog I am educating my audience on the benefits of simply Listening – my audience works in a highly regulated industry that prevents Talking and Collaborating.

As Charles M suggests above, there is an entirely new dimension of insights to be gained by adding search.twitter.com to your base of education re prospects, clients, industry, competition, etc.

There is a place in business for social networking and there are some networks that are of higher quality than others. Anyone on the internet today knows this.

while I don’t completly agree that all the items on your list are necessary prior to social networkin, I firmly agree that you need to know what part of your overall marketing strategy these venues fill.

There is a crucial component missing from most internet marketers’ toolkits and that is a written plan of action that is tied to some sort of accountability statistic. Socializing and building relationships on the internet is fun but focus is necessary, especially if one is self-employed.

Marj Wyatt aka Virtually Marj

It never hurts to build a list.

BUT…

To capitalize on it immediately you are absolutely correct why a person shouldn’t bother with FB or Twitter!

If you don’t know how to use Twitter though, it will be a waste of time.

Good blog post…it got me thinking about my own strategy and how I’m using the social sites.