How does the average small business keep up with social media trends?

How do you keep up when your overwhelmed?

A reporter from EContent doing a story on the latest SEO tools and strategies recently posed the following question to me looking for insights and perspective;

With content providers like AOL Seed, Demand Studios and others creating a significant amount of search-driven content and showing up frequently in the bulk of online searches, what can the “little guys” do to keep up?

On the surface this question postulates that there is a running race to the top of a chart and the average small business owner only has so much torque. But thanks to the advents of the web, like Boolean searching made commonplace, and end user access to Graph Search by Facebook or Webmaster tools, the average user can wield the power to make waves.

How do you feel about your struggle to get your name out there? Have you been buried by the larger content providers? Here was my reply;

“One way that the smaller business can keep up with current social media, is to create legitimate viral trends/buzz via content outlets on the PR9 and 10 popular networks. Although many have a nofollow tag set on Wall comments, the actual humanistic value is unparalleled. Regimenting your corporate twitter profile to several tweets per day, keeps you on a potential client’s radar. Contributing and encouraging content on Facebook fan pages and discussion boards, and review sites like Google Maps and Yelp, are all becoming significant for the simple reason that potential clients scan and snap-judge, based on your overall presence on Google, and this ‘IRL buzz’ will shine through.” May Levy, Online Social Strategist