As a business coach, my clients often ask me for suggestions on using Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, and Ning to further market their freelance writing, consulting and business services.
I tell them that like any other form of advertising it comes slowly.
The more you put yourself out there, the more potential clients will learn about you.
Nothing happens overnight contrary to a lot of gurus on the Internet.
People today step into the social media world when they set up Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts geared around a launch party for their own business or a client.
These always seem to perform successfully.
Leading up to the events, they are able to communicate with friends, clients and other businesses on very easily in an effort to attract added attention.
After seeing the success of large organizations in utilizing Twitter, most businesses today feel like it will be beneficial for them.
Especially since Twitter is becoming more recognized as a customer service tool as well as a terrific source for news and information.
Most social media consultants suggest using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, Flicker, etc as business tools.
Business owners will see how these social networks can and do generate more than just ' chit chat amongst friends' but actually 'revenue among professionals'.
Many people can say that now have 'tweets' that generate income, many more visitors to their blog, and sell items directly to an audience that is not random hits but expressly directed to their website by mutual interest of the topics they discuss in their blog.
If you are out to attract prospective customers and develop your online presence and exposure, you owe it to yourself and the financial future of your business to learn everything you can about social media.