(CORNING, N.Y.) - Under the weight of the recession, local small businesses are looking for new ways to target customers.

They just may have found their solution by way of social networking sites.

People have been using Facebook and MySpace for years now.  More recently, the micro-blogging site Twitter has become popular for people who want to post real-time updates about their daily lives.

Now, businesses are learning how to generate profits using social media.  It's not uncommon to see ads from businesses like Pizza Hut and Dell on Facebook diguised as games or fan pages.  On Twitter, if you "follow" an agency you like, you might often see promotional "updates" posted with links to coupons or details about a daily special.

The Corning Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday held a conference called "To Tweet or Not to Tweet?"

Joe Carey of Access Computing in Corning showed local small business owners how to target customers using the sites.