In 2005, Newsweek printed a story entitled, “Blogs Will Change Your Business”. By 2008, the story still sits in cyberspace with an editorial note reminding us that even a media giant like Newsweek, “never saw MySpace coming” and they originally thought Twitter was simply a space on the internet cluttered by “small birds”. How social media for business will evolve into the next decade, the next year or even into the next month remains anyone’s guess.

Socializing via the web isn’t going away anytime soon. That’s a fact. More important is the fact that if you’re not a player in this realm your business is simply at the mercy of those that do. Think about that. People are talking about you and your business on Yelp! and on Yahoo whether you’re aware of it or not.

Surveying a small number of local business owners, it’s easy to find many who just aren’t up with the times. Survey their customers and you’ll find that most people want to do business with an enterprise that is hip, green and online. The world is changing and if your business is still sitting in the dark ages you’re future success is up for grabs!

Yes. People are talking about you and if they’re not saying nice things you should know about it! The days of network marketing for ‘resume-posting only’ were gone a few years ago. Today, they’re using popular networking platforms such as Twitter, LINKEDIn and Facebook. Today, smart micro and smallish businesses are utilizing the power of 1:1 and 1:1MM connections to infiltrate the core of their constituency. Why should you be left behind simply because you haven’t clicked with the times?

Maybe you have yet to even setup a website. Well, shame on you! In a retail enterprise, talk and gawk are the keys to success. If multi-million dollar businesses think online presence is important, then why have you hesitated to follow suit? You’re only killing your own business if you think that socialized networking, online marketing campaigns and enigmatic online advertising are only for geeks.

One complaint that many business owners have about social media is the amount of time that it takes to administer a well optimized social networking campaign. Fortunately, there are resources available that allow you to automate many of the most tedious of those chores. Two of those aids are GooBert and Miracle Traffic Bot, which we have reviewed elsewhere.

If you’re not in the online game then you’re simply serving up your business investment as prey to the masses. Those who don’t like your service will Yelp! about you in a minute. Those that love you have no place to go to learn more about you or praise your efforts if you haven’t established a blog. If your business isn’t online in these three major categories: (a) blogging, (b) website and (c) social media – your future is akin to being mere dust in the wind.

Nobody wants to have to work harder to get customers or retain the ones they have. But for you ‘Mom & Pop Ops’ out there who think that you can continue to grow without online intervention. Think again. Then click into the future by using social media for your business. Like most things, you can use it or lose it! But with social media one thing is for certain, if you don’t use it well, it will use you and ultimately that may not be such a ‘good thing’ after all.