At least once a day, someone asks me a question about Social Media. It’s the buzz about business and marketing circles. Social media wasn’t a big deal a few years ago, but it became a hot topic when the masses got on board. Now, the eyeballs are online – people are reading blogs, twittering, stumbling upon stuff and checking their Facebook. There’s no arguing the buzz and rapid growth in social media.  Facebook alone has over 175 million users (see http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics) and is growing at an estimated 5 million users per week.

However, what does this mean to the small business owner? Is it worthwhile? Does it offer a measurable return? Should you even care?

The jury is still out on the measurable ROI question – I’ll address that on another day.  There are some businesses using it effectively for connecting with their target markets, but most of what I see is not providing an ROI, at least not a positive ROI.

Is having 5000 friends on Facebook of any more value to your business than getting to Level 60 on World of Warcraft?  Who has 5000 friends that they can communicate with anyway???

Opportunities for success really depend on your business and who your target market is. There is no denying that social media can be a worthwhile part of your overall marketing strategy. It’s where a growing number of your customers and future customers are, and you need to be aware of the conversation at the very least.

In my opinion, too many companies are jumping on board with no real plan.  Many small businesses have yet to master having an effective web presence, search engine marketing, and email marketing and here they go jumping into Social Media because everyone is talking about it.  Small business should aim their efforts at the biggest opportunities online.   According to eMarketer, over 90% of all web users use search engines and email daily. Compare that to around 16% of web users who hit a social network once a month.

My advice to small business. Evaluate your existing online presence. If your web presence is non-existent, can’t be found, embarrassing or ineffective, get it in order first before you start telling the masses to come look.  Then, start small with social media.  There are a number of relatively easy things you can do to get in the game that I’ll be discussing later this week.  Stay tuned.