It is a fact that social media is a part of everyone’s life, no matter how hard some may fight it or try to ignore the very obvious elephant in the middle of the room.

In a very short time, social media has integrated its way into our lives. We go to it for a laugh, for information, to vent, to connect.

It is obvious that social media marketing has also taken the business world by storm and is a must to compete in today’s market.

57% of Americans polled say that the first thing they do when they wake up in the morning is Facebook (even before potty) and that Facebook is the last thing they do at night. 47% of Americans said that Facebook is the biggest influence on their purchasing decisions. It is easy to see that a social media presence is particularly important to any business and especially to small business where every prospect is worth their weight in gold.

When you consider that you can create and manage an effective social media marketing campaign to grow your business for very little money compared to traditional advertising and that you can deliver your message around the world in a matter of seconds, every small business owner should at least consider adding social media to their marketing plan.

There are some things to keep in mind with social media marketing as a small business owner:

1. Social media marketing is not a short-term fix. There isn’t an immediate explosion of sales or growth, but it can be an amazingly effective long-term strategy for any size business to listen to and engage with customers while tapping into an endless number of new prospects.

2. Social media interaction must be consistent, engaging and on point. Don’t over sell or sound like an infomercial.

3. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn users take advantage of search tools within those communities, using keyword phrases to find what they’re looking for. Therefore, your posting needs to include the keywords you have created for your web presence and marketing. This also ensures that your company shows up in relevant searches conducted by prospects.

4. Social media marketing and search engine marketing go hand in hand. Because your social media efforts help strengthen your SEO efforts (rankings and traffic) , in today’s competitive marketplace you should strongly consider engaging in both activities.

5. Your content is the driver for social media marketing, so if you’re going to promote your own content you need to go the extra mile to see to it that the content is worth sharing. Mix up your content to provide variety and make it easy to share, such as adding buttons and links for visitors to use to email, tweet or share your content and connect with you on all the social sites to which you belong.

While social media is constantly changing, it’s not a fad and it’s not going to go away any time soon. The sheer number of people who actively use social media outlets, especially Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube is a STRONG argument for considering social media marketing as part of your overall marketing strategy. And while the popularity of individual social media outlets may rise and fall, and new outlets may come on the scene, the overall concepts and value of social media marketing are here to stay.

There is no better time than the present to jump into the social media masses and begin to build the audience, interaction and brand loyalty that will take you to the next level.