A couple of years ago, SMBs merely shoveled their existing offline presence online. But today, they are really developing a unique online experience, noted Facebook’s Rita Fabi, who runs market solutions, global customer marketing and communications and spoke at DMS ’11 in Denver.

SMBs can use Facebook in several ways to accomplish this, she said. ‘Like’ ads are especially powerful. Check-in deals make their in-store experience social. And sponsored stories let your friends talk as a type of informal testimonial.

“A lot of websites are very excited about making their websites social,” Fabi adds. They want to create an integrated Pages and ad strategy. In the past, people looked at these as separate things. But it requires some expertise — hence a potential opportunity for directory publishers and others that sell to SMBs.