Time seems to be a factor when talking to people about Social Network Marketing as well as what to say.  I tell my clients, sign up for the accounts and then start linking and following others to get an idea.  This usually gets them jumped started.  The time factor those is like with anything new you start.  It will take a little time to get your profile set up, but once you have that and you start inviting people to follow you and  you following them, it because exciting and almost addicting.. Soon they will have a Social Media Anonymous. :)

A recent report put out by Marketing Charts provides a range of the amount of hours people spend working their Social Media Marketing.

48% of those surveyed said their efforts resulted in more qualified leads and 35% said it helped them close more business.  Below is a chart to depicted what areas benefited the most.

This next chart is kinda mind boggling since Social Media was started by marketers, yet a lot of marketers I know haven't even tipped their toe in the water. 

If you company is not networking socially via the many avenues available, you could be missing out on thousands of business connections.  People are using Social Media venues to communicate with others more than email, 85% to 65% as of last year. 

Social networking is also a way to better your search results when someone is trying to find your type of business.  Social networking is like having a 24/7 after hours... You meet new and interesting people who you could provide your services too or that you could use their services.  Don't wait to long to get connected.  Below I list some of those popular Social Media Venues.  I have not gotten into all of them, but I am working on it.

The Rocky Mountain News has been in trouble for some time now--however, I just realized today that my son will never be a paperboy. But, thanks to Twitter--he has a shot at being a journalist or even a publisher at age 6! That's right. See, even on Twitter, it's "ok" if you mis-spell words or occasionally don't make sense. You don't even have to tell the truth, you can just make it up as you go along and speak what's on your mind. The more tweeting you do, the more people will believe you.  Sounds like marketing, not journalism. 

On one hand...this could be good for business--but, on the other it is starting to become clear that we will be losing more than newspapers. We are going to start losing images and archives of Americana that will be tough to replace. We'll also start losing a very important "fact check" on what we are currently getting from Blogs, Twitter, MSNBC, CNN, etc. 

We are watching the very slow death of an American Institution.

In a 24/7 instant news cycle, we rely on sound bites and tweets to get our news. That's right, all the cool news anchors are using Twitter to get their news from folks with opinions--not news. Who checks this stuff? The media is so competitive right now that they jump the gun to launch or leak a story.  Newspapers, by virtue of being newspapers demand a slower, more methodical process of checks and balances. I can't tell you how many times I've seen "news" online, or on one of the "news channels" and then NOT seen the story anywhere in a newspaper (even a major one like the New York Times). Why?