Why Social Media?

It has the potential to eat up tons of time, scheduling it into your day means adding an extra activity into a crowded schedule, and the learning curve can be high depending on how technically savvy you are. So why get into social media? Customers!

Don't think of social media as an online time waster, instead, think of it as digital networking. There are tons of people for you to connect with. By skipping out on social media, you could be skipping out on an enormous number of new customers. Here are some specifics:

-Facebook has more than 400 million users. A bit of perspective: there are 300 million people in the United States. The average Facebook user has 130 friends and is connected to 60 pages, groups and events.

-There are nearly 12 million Twitter users. About 65 percent of them are under 25. Women make up 53 percent of the user base.

That's a huge market! Before you get too excited, remember that this is digital networking, not digital door-to-door sales. Don't spam users with links and useless content. It's like real networking--connect with people and engage them. Send useful links and take part in conversations. The benefit over face-to-face networking is that you can break up the conversation over time, you can connect to multiple networks at once, and you can do it from anywhere.