In recent months I have been asked many times 'Why should we be using Social Media?' or "Twitter' 'I don't get it?'

Ask Yourself... Are you missing opportunities by not listening?

Social Media has changed the way we do almost everything. Businesses & Companies have been slow on the uptake in some instances and are stuck in their traditional ways of marketing and advertising. The task is to convince the 'traditional' business why SM is so important!

Your competitors are using social media & your competitors are using social media well and are probably better at it than you!

Here are a few things to think about...

Social Media is mostly a public & open platform. Anything you can learn about your own brand or product, you can also learn about competitors brands!

You can gain valuable business by taking the time to listen to your community!

You can monitor competitors feeds for marketing advantages & how are they comparing themselves with you?

Social Media is a Personal Business: It humanizes your business

People buy from people. People 'connect' with people. People buy from peer recommendations. In this day and age we have all become 'savvy' to the sales pitch and marketing and advertising spiel..... We have become immune and often ignore an advertising campaign.

In a recent report 73% trust peer recommendations Only.... 14% trust ads

Social media marketing lies in the potential for word-of-mouth online influencers. If a customer has 5,000 followers on Twitter and tweets something positive about your business, then that tweet is like a free online advertisement with a potential audience of 5,000 new customers, plus any Twitter followers of those 5,000 people, and so on. The same kind of thinking is true for Facebook wall posts.

Social Media is the most cost effective way to market your product or brand & stay ahead of the competition! It's a free platform!

In 2011 The Social Media Marketing report stated that: SM increased website traffic by 72% & directly increased online sales by 48%

But, the community relationship doesn't stop when you've made the sale. Social Media is great for customer service and for identifying issues in real time!

We all use Social Media sites for a sense of friendship, community & belonging. We share valuable content and can react to feedback instantly!

In fact we SM is now commanding a quarter of all time spent online and we dedicate more time to Social Media than email & searching. Include the huge rise in smartphone usage & almost 40 percent of social media users access social sites from their mobile devices. This means that users are connected to social media networks 24/7. Clients and potential customers can "friend" your business instantly from their phones.

Add cutting-edge mobile marketing tactics like location-based marketing and the possibilities of mobile and social media marketing are limitless!