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I'm curious if anyone has any examples to share of local businesses that have grown using social media alone.

Good examples:

Some, sort of vague, examples:

  • I have worked with a women who built a small fashion label just using a Facebook page and a paypal account.
  • I have also met a consultant who kept himself busy from Linked-in 'friend of friend' type contacts.

Do you know of any similar examples?

I know there are people out there who have grown their business using myspace or yelp or kijjii or local city review site X. I would love to have some more concrete examples I can cite for some writing I am doing.

Ideally, I would like to hear stories where people turned a profit before they even had a website.

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Angie's List advertises everywhere, including even the radio. I don't think that counts as "social media alone." – Jason Nov 8 '09 at 18:11
I wasn't aware of that - thanks. They don't exist in my neck of the woods. – Adam Nov 27 '09 at 20:57

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This interesting read answers your question on Mashable: 12 Inspiring Stories of Successful Social Networkers

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Adam, Thanks for the bounty points! – Keith DeLong Dec 2 '09 at 22:02
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You may like to look at Ashley Qualls' story: She basically build her business on MySpace, IIRC.

If blogging also counts as "social media", there're some more examples in the following article: Top 30 Female Internet Entrepreneurs.

Hope this helps.

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Thanks, great story of building a website using social media. I was hoping for some examples where the business didn't even have a website until after they were profitable, however. – Adam Nov 4 '09 at 12:44
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You might want to check out Gary Vaynerchuk (http://garyvaynerchuk.com/) from Wine Library TV. He has gotten a lot of press lately because of his book. If I recall correctly, he started out just doing the TV thing and via Social Media, took off. I think Wine Library was profitable before Gary came along and then it took off after the whole Wine Library TV.

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SMALL BUSINESS SUCCESSES IN SOCIAL MEDIA: A recent study conducted by the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business showed that nearly one in five small business owners are integrating social media into their business processes, and that technology adoption rates in the U.S. among small businesses have doubled in the past year from 12% to 24%.

Here are two links you will find helpful:

This is a link to an excellent Mashable article entitled: 5 Small Business Social Media Success Stories.

This is a link to more detailed information about study itself: How Small Business Is Using Social Media.

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