We've all gotten so used to the wonders of modern technology that we've forgotten some of the basics of communication and language. When you look at the modern workplace you'll see lots of people in tiny cubicles all staring into their screens either working or maybe on Facebook or Twitter. But all of their "conversations" are digital and people are actually losing the art of conversation and relying on short Tweets or Facebook messages - you'll even see people Facebooking each other who are sitting beside each other.

The same thing applies when people are looking for products or services in their area, town or city - you tend to just rely on the digital means of getting information and using Google to find out everything that you want or need to know. Now when it comes to finding things like a great restaurant or plumbers in your area then using Google search makes perfect sense but you're leaving yourself wide open to manipulation by marketing people. You see some of those great reviews for plumbing services in your area are artificial and aren't worth reading. In the same breath many of the reviews are entirely genuine and can point you in the direction of a great plumber. The problem for you is that you're going to have to figure out which are the fakes and which ones you can trust.

So another and smarter option is to combine your online research with using the original and best social networking tools - your ears and mouth. What we mean by that is to simply try asking your friends and listen to what recommendations they can give you. At least by asking your friends to recommend some great plumbers in your area you can rely on what they're telling you because they have no vested interest in the plumbing company so they're just sharing information with you that they hope helps you.

One of the most effective ways for finding the best plumbers in your area is to combine Facebook or Twitter and word-of-mouth in one fell swoop and run a survey. If you have 100 Facebook friends and 100 offline friends to ask then you're going to see patterns emerging and you'll find that 20% of the plumbers in your area will get mentioned over and over again - this is just the Pareto Principle at work. When you'll find is that a small number of local plumbers get mentioned over and over again which simply means that you're seeing the cream rise to the top and you can eliminate any plumber who doesn't appear in the top 10% or 20% of the names your friends give you.

What would have taken weeks to research 10 years ago can now be done in maybe as little as 2 hours - sometimes less.