Your small business is either engaging in social media right now, dipping it’s toe in the water or doesn’t have a clue or desire to participate in the hottest online channel. Survival is truly what it is, because whether you realize it or not this channel of connectivity is growing at light speed. For your business, this can equate to traffic and sales if you know all the ins and outs and how to make it work in your favor. If you decide to sit on the sidelines, you might just watch others connect, grow, and expand their prospect, subscriber, and client lists faster than ever before.

So, first off, are you social, anti-social, or non-social?

Let me put it to you another way: how’s your tweeting, posting, and commenting coming along?

Not sure what I mean? Then you must be non-social. Maybe you totally understand because you’ve been fighting off the social butterflies for months and maybe years, yet no matter what you do, someone is always asking you to join their page, forum, or blog. It might not be your thing, yet you continue to put off this cutting-edge medium, and will fall behind if you don’t act now or very soon in the future.

Social media is essential if you are going to continually market and expose your business on the web. It is the way that more and more people regularly communicate and it has brought our offline life to the online world. Needless to say this power tool has proven to be very valuable to businesses – and will only grow bigger in years to come. I do not need to provide you with a ton of statistics – hopefully you have seen the social media video; we now know that 500 million users are on Facebook (some predict it will be 1 BILLION next year). So what does this mean for your business?

This viral, word-of-mouth broadcast will not only spread in your local network, but now to a GLOBAL network. You will bring in traffic to your website(s) and have new connections that you may never have thought of – all within hours and maybe even minutes!

We are now in a digital age; phone books & newspapers, are all proving slow, ineffective, and archaic. A business’ calling card is its website and social media sites. The more traffic you have, the more potential sales. The value of social media is extremely high: manage this channel well and show the evolution & progress of your business with the click of a button.

Now it seems like there are new social sites popping up all over the place. Surely by now you have heard of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn but have you heard of Sta.rtup.biz, Stumbleupon, Digg, Gather, or Ning? These are just a small sampling of the social media tools you can use for generating traffic to your business. The objective lies in finding which ones are good for you and your business.

You say you’re out of time and don’t know how to fit in that quality time with your spouse and kids let alone developing a social media strategy for your business. I know, it’s time consuming and almost like another gorilla banging on your door.

Maybe you’re like so many small business owners who are already inundated and overloaded with the web, keeping up with email plus all the regular day to day activities that keep your business moving along. With so much to learn and so little time how does one take on the social media behemoth and still accomplish day to day business?

Ah hahh!!!   You hire social media experts (SME) and you’ll be more efficient, get more exposure and sleep better knowing that you’re in good hands. Remember, it’s better to stay in your strength area and then delegate those tasks, chores and weakness areas to someone who is more knowledgeable, experienced, and talented.

Several ways social media and a SME can help drive more traffic and connect your business to new prospects, subscribers, and clients:

1. ‘Quick Connect’ with more people in your niche or industry, which can possibly generate
2. Ability to make constant changes and updates plus show activity and what’s new with the business.
3. Find new social sites and blogs that you otherwise might have never been connected to.

At clickandmortarblog.com, we continue to explore and look for quality social media sites that we can connect to existing business owners and those looking to start businesses. If you’re looking to reach out and expand into the world of social media and want a cost effective way to accomplish this, then consider a firm that works exclusively in this niche and can help you to plan and navigate through the social media jungle.