Some optimistic news today in a study dug up by eMarketer: lots of small businesses plan to increase their spending on social network marketing in 2009. In fact, 25% of the small businesses surveyed by Ad-ology Research indicated that they would increase spending on the medium this year, a higher percentage than any other marketing format.







Meanwhile, 33% of small businesses indicated that they would keep spending on social networking about the same, while only 5% reported that they plan to spend less than in the previous year. Surprisingly, while 37% of small businesses in the survey don’t use social networking at all, that’s a smaller percentage than any other medium, including email marketing, search engine marketing, and even just maintaining a company website.

What to make of the data? While certainly hopeful news for those that work in social media, overall, the numbers would seemingly point to what might be a better-than-expected year overall for businesses that depend on online marketing dollars. In all but a few areas (online video, podcasting, and mobile), small businesses indicate they are growing (or keeping the same) and not shrinking their marketing budgets.

Costs are certainly being cut elsewhere – the unemployment rate in the US is at a 16-year high – but maybe, just maybe, online marketing is a bit better off than other areas of the economy.