From the beginning, social media has had an important impact on all of us.
Social media started out as a method for people to either connect or reconnect with each other.
At this point, social media has become much more.
Business people use marketing to successfully grow their businesses and to get their word out in a tremendous way.
The most effective marketing approach is one that uses social media and traditional marketing in tandem.
Business owners have figured out that social media marketing (SMM) has a very positive effect on the success of business and it is a method that takes very little money to accomplish a solid end result.
Social media marketing plus traditional marketing Marketers are using traditional forms of marketing (radio, television and print) as well as using the Internet to reach out to customers and potential customers and getting those customers and potential customers to reach out to them.
The number of people who regularly use various social media channels has grown dramatically and more and more people are getting more and more involved with social media to grow their businesses and to build relationships with other people all of the time.
It is one of the easiest, least expensive, and most effective ways to gain exposure and to strengthen your business's reputation.
Social media marketing and advertising SMM is a group of operations and methods used to generate publicity through social media channels and Internet communities.
Social media advertising is the planning and executing of advertising campaigns through those channels.
The reason that the face of marketing is changing so drastically is that the marketers understand that they need to go wherever the clients are.
The fact is that the clients are hanging out in the online social communities.
What investment must you make? The idea that the investment that you need to make in order to make social media work has very little to do with actual money is very appealing to a lot of people.
Of course, nothing valuable comes totally free.
The investment that you need to make is time and effort.
You need to consistently devote a specific amount of time each week to making your SMM campaign work for your business.
Without that consistency, it won't work for you.
It is a matter of what you are willing to give up-time or money.
The social media revolution The revolution was inevitable.
With the pace at which technology was and is changing, it was just a matter of time (and not too much time) before people would start to get involved, get passionate and drive the success of the innovative and exciting tool that is social media.
Also, the fact that it started out with people using it for personal reasons did not in any way dilute the strength that social media has for businesses now and in the future.
Conclusion SMM is not about the hard sell.
 It is about building relationships with others who will eventually become your customers.
It is all about people and solving their problems.
The more relationships you can build with other people, the more they will begin to trust you, believe in your credibility, want to do business with you, and ultimately become loyal customers.
A large and important part of building those relationships is the generation of discussions.
Remember that you are having discussions with the purpose of educating, not selling.
The approach is much more subtle and will really take you a long way in building your relationships.
As a business owner, you have an obligation to your business and to yourself to be a part of the social media revolution.
If you aren't a part of it, you won't be able to enjoy the success that you and your business want and deserve.