Digg, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube...
these are just a few of the sites businesses use in their social media optimization efforts.
Most of us have heard of these and quite a few of us use them for personal purposes.
If we own a business and have failed to harness the power of social media sites, we are doing ourselves a huge disservice.
Each moment we waste by ignoring this elephant in the room represents profits lost to the competition.
The question should not be if, but when social media will factor into our online business marketing efforts.
Facebook has more than 500 million users, a figure that is larger than many countries.
More than half of Facebook account holders pay a daily visit to their home page.
Over 18 million people use Twitter, including some of the wealthiest consumers in the world.
With statistics like these, it seems silly not to be tapping into this potential customer base.
After all, would we turn away millions of customers if they wanted to enter our store or visit our website? No sir, we would throw open the doors and welcome them with a hug.
In addition, it is not only these folks who can benefit our business.
LinkedIn, an online business networking site, has more than 35 million members who could be our future investors and corporate partners.
These folks enjoy spending time online and we enjoy offering our products and services to Internet shoppers.
All we need to do is get them to visit our Web site and make a purchase.
Well, that can sometimes be easier said than done.
On top of that, do we really want to be a "one hit wonder" with customers? It would be much nicer to build a relationship with them, converting them into loyal shoppers who think of our company first when looking for something we sell.
Networking is what leads to good relationships and social media sites are all about it.
They help companies share information, build rapport, and develop trust.
The difference is, they do it on a massive scale, rather than a one-to-one ratio.
This means that we potentially get millions of times the results for the same amount of effort.
Now, who would hesitate to enter a situation like that? We basically have a captive audience of millions of people, many of whom are looking for exactly what we are selling.
Almost as attractive is the fact that we do not pay anything to reach them using social media.
It costs nothing to join these sites, we can market any time of day and any day of the year, and each time we log on, we get in touch with different people.
Rather than being something we ignore or fear, social media should be a resource we embrace.
By learning more about what social media sites have to offer, we can figure out how to use these tools to our advantage.
With a comprehensive social media optimization strategy, we can increase our sales to unimagined levels.