It's time to rethink your marketing strategy to include social media as part of your toolkit.

Because the rules have changed - a LOT.

Let's go back...oh, let's say about 5 years or so.

And in this not-so-distant past, a company could simply call the newspaper or the radio and just run a few ads to get more business. Basically, you used to be able to spend your dollars to buy more audience. The more you spent, the more customers you would get. That's why the big businesses stayed big.

But NOW, this throw-it-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach doesn't work.

Because NOW, there's Facebook and ezines and SEO and mobile and viral videos and applications and Twitter...and ...and...and...

The way that our customers are looking for information is changing rapidly.

Therefore, marketing via social media is essential if you want your company to stay up with the trends.

Because today, people want to get excited. They want to engage in dialogues with the companies that they support. So, to thrive and grow you must use social media to create exciting ideas and to stimulate conversations and to build online brands with which people have passionate love affairs.

This is a really exciting shift for most companies and organizations. Because new marketing and social media has so many opportunities for small- to mid-sized business to get themselves KNOWN.

Social media allows every business to leverage huge numbers of people by creating online community and generating excitement around its brand.

If you are not using social media, then begin now. Because people are flocking to these online venues in huge numbers. And your business should be marketing itself where your prospects are spending time.

Below is a presentation that I gave recently to a group of marketing professionals explaining more about the power of social media (you can also click here to go to the presentation on SlideShare). I hope it gives you some ideas about ways you can take your brand to the next level: