Social media is important for a number of reasons. First, social media provides people with the basis of understanding what it is you are marketing- whether this is yourself, a product or a service. For many people social media is about “connecting” with other people. It's about knowing that you can log on to Twitter and always find a conversation to jump into. It's about being able to exchange information and ideas freely with one another and learning new things in the processs.

Really, social media can be anything that you want it to be. But for businesses, social media has been somewhat of a godsend in that it provides companies with the opportunity to find out what it is people are saying about their product or service, figuring out ways to address issues that come up and then subsequently figuring out ways to solve the problem at hand. Social media provides you with an outlet in which to come up with creative marketing tactics to make your business more appealing to the average consumer. Not only this, but it really connects businesses with the public so that people can interact with whomever it is that made something they are using. For example, if you purchased a pair of running sneakers from a particular company and you find out that they are using Twitter, you can send them a message and actually receive a response back to your problem.

The social web provides all forms of opportunities for people to discuss and review different products and services. On the flipside of the above stated information, social media can also have devastating effects on a business. Because social media networking sites such as Twitter and Plurk, etc. allow for the immediate transmission of information to millions of people, it doesn't take long for a buzz or “trending topic” to start. If that trending topic just happens to be about how awful of an experience someone had using your product, then you can definitely start to worry about how you are going to begin to manage damage control. For example, look at the recent death of pop singer, Michael Jackson. I happened to have my Twitter screen open (which I usually do when I am working on the computer), glanced over and saw that the trending topics were “Michael,” “Jackson,” “pop,” “hospital,” “heart attack”. Keep in mind that this was on the actual day that he wound up dying. To give you even a glimpse as to how powerful the social web is, I actually found out that Michael Jackson had had a heart attack before the news had even caught wind of it! This has happened in several other instances when I was using Twitter where the news broke there first. All of this being said, if news breaks about you on such a social media site, you had better hope that it's good!

Social media is an extremely powerful tool to have in your corner. It gives you an edge when it comes to business and marketing, and if used correctly- it can certainly be to your benefit.