Facebook has become an important marketing channel to SMBs, according to InfoGroup’s quarterly Small Business Marketing Outlook. Twenty percent of those surveyed said Facebook was extremely/very important, and 24 percent said it was somewhat important.

Twitter is important, too. Twenty-four percent said Twitter was either somewhat or very important. Local coupon sites were also cited by 26 percent as somewhat or very important.

In general, 31 percent expect to boost their budgets over the next 12 months. Fifty-seven percent expect their marketing budgets to remain flat. Ten percent expect a dip in their marketing budgets. Sixty percent also said that their website was the most important marketing technique, while 50 percent said email marketing was important.