Social media continues to be a powerful influence

Social media isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s still growing and the number of social media users is increasing. A few years ago people were saying it would reach saturation by 2013 and then start to lose its grip. This has not happened. Social media has changed the way we communicate and the way we use the internet, and with the massive growth of mobile web social media is more powerful and popular than ever.

Using social media increases the influence you have. It strengthens your brand and it makes sure you are seen by the people in your network. But even more important it helps you grow you network and attract new people who are friends with people who already engage with you.

And that is why as a free resource it is still the number one way to actually find real people online who could become customers. By increasing the influence of social media signals, the search engines are essentially outsourcing the manual evaluation process of content to a large extent.

If you have not been keeping up with social media it is time you did. Your company does not need to be on every platform but it is a good idea to be on the two that most lend themselves to your business. Twitter and Facebook are by far the most popular so they are a good place to start.

Social media is not going anywhere, it is just going to change, improve and add more functionality. But the concept and the reality of it is here to stay so all businesses will gain more leverage if they are on the right platforms and develop as social media develops.