However, a study shows that there are more people who value it than are actually using it.

Recent research is indicating that female business owners are feeling quite optimistic, overall, about the way that their companies will be performing over the upcoming year, and that many of them feel that social media marketing could play a notable role in helping to enhance outcomes.

That said, a surprising number of women business owners are not using this technique, despite the value they assign it.

The research from the National Association of Women Business Owners and Web.com Group, Inc., showed that 89 percent of women feel that their business performance will be positive throughout this year. This is an increase of 8 percent over the figures that were registered last year when women business owners were asked the same question. Among those who participated in the survey, most said that social media marketing was important for building relationships with customers.

In fact, 85 percent of women business owners felt that social media marketing was important for this purpose.

However, at the same time that this vast majority expressed that they felt this way, only 67 percent of this same group said that they were currently using one of the social networks in order to connect with customers. At the same time, only slightly over half felt strong enough in their ability to build a presence over social media in order to achieve this goal. When all was said and done, only about one in every four female business owners are posting comments at least one time per day.

Among those that were posting over social media, the preferred site was also surprising. Although Facebook is by far the largest social network and it receives the highest amount of traffic, it was still used by only 21 percent of the respondents. LinkedIn had the top spot at 25 percent. This could suggest either that women prefer the latter network or it could also indicate that many of the survey participants were marketing business to business – for which LinkedIn would be the top choice.

This year could be a defining one for social media marketing, as the perception of its value continues to rise, but at a greater rate than its adoption among this demographic.

Alibaba intends to launch an IPO in the near future, aiming for US listing

The Alibaba Group, China’s largest e-commerce organization, has announced plans to seek listing on the U.S. stock exchange. The company is preparing to launch an initial public offering (IPO), but has not yet released details concerning this process. Alibaba is currently considered one of the most successful e-commerce groups in the world and has been making a strong push into the mobile commerce sector. In order to provide its forthcoming IPO with additional momentum, Alibaba has been pushing to make its new taxi application more popular among consumers.

Taxi-hailing application expected to add value to Alibaba’s mobile initiatives

The application takes advantage of a taxi-hailing service. The service allows users to schedule a taxi for transportation directly from their mobile device. The service can be paid for through the Alipay application, which facilitates mobile payments. This type of taxi-hailing service is quite popular in China, where people are beginning to rely more heavily on transit services. Taxis in large cities are finding that business from mobile consumers is rising significantly.

Alibaba and Tencent continue to fight in the mobile market

Alibaba is currently working to compete with Tencent, one of China’s largest Internet organizations. Tencent has been pushing into the mobile commerce field as well and has managed to establish a strong presence therein through its WeChat application. WeChat is the most popular messaging application in the world and is heavily used throughout Asia. Tencent has been working to transform WeChat into a mobile commerce platform and has managed to find success in this endeavor thus far.

Taxi-hailing applications may be a boon for both Tencent and Alibaba

Both Alibaba and Tencent are focusing heavily on taxi-hailing services. Both companies believe that taxis could power future growth and add further value to their mobile commerce initiatives. Alibaba anticipates that it will raise more than $15 billion from its IPO, but there are no details concerning when this IPO will be launched. Alibaba is likely to continue working to establish a lead in China’s growing mobile market.