Elizabeth Friedland over at TrendyMinds has an excellent post about the concept of social media not being the end-all scheme to push marketing to the masses.

I wanted to bring up my thought on the real value of social media to the small business owner or CEO: Listening. You do not need to get rid of your traditional marketing strategy. You shouldn’t. Whenever I am in front of a group of people I always say, “If you come to me and say you got rid of your press releases and direct mail pieces and started a Facebook Page. I will never talk to you again.”

So what is a business owner to do?

Learn the tool. Use the tool. Evaluate the tool.

You can either decide to take a class to learn how to implement the tool into your overall strategy or learn the tool yourself using videos from Common Craft. You need to understand the tool before using it. You need to use the tool before implementing it into your overall strategy. If you decide it is a waste of time and money… ditch it. At least you tried.

The important thing to remember is that whether you do it yourself or hire one of the numerous marketing, social media, and new media companies you should be staying ahead of the curve.

1.5 Billion people are connected to the Internet and 300 million use social media. It is an important tool and it will be in the future.

Be strategic. Be thoughtful and listen.