In some ways social media such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have taken us back to a much slower-paced time.  A time when people gathered in local places and exchanged information about businesses they liked – and disliked.  And often these people already knew the business owners whose business was being recommended.

This is what social media can do for business owners today – whether your business is local, national or international.  It can connect you with your prospective clients or customers in a way that static websites – and blogs that do not allow comments – cannot.

Let’s take an imaginary example:

When you are considering hiring a publicity firm to promote a special event for your business, you can check out each firm’s website to read the static copy.  But what if only one of the three firms you are considering has an active presence on Twitter?  You follow that firm, tweet a question or two, and get back tweeted replies that offer a more personal connection with the publicity firm.

And to take our example a step further, that publicity firm on Twitter also shares links to interesting publicity-related articles written by other people.   You read those articles, learn some things, and are also impressed that the publicity firm on Twitter is collaborative enough to share information from others.

These interactive connections to this one publicity firm give you a much better feel for who you would be working with than the static websites of the other two firms.  In other words, the social aspect of social media has given you a better opportunity to evaluate the business expertise of one of the three publicity firms you are considering.

Is it any wonder that this is the publicity firm most likely to be chosen by you?

Now we’ve been talking about your process in choosing a business to use for yourself.  But the same process can work for you when you are, for example, one of three fashion design companies being scouted by reps from a nationwide store chain.  The more social connections you can forge with these reps the better your odds probably are of being the company chosen for the large order.  And this means that social media can be very beneficial for your business outreach.

The next time you think that social media isn’t for business, think again.  Effectively participating on social media may just be the ticket for your attracting more clients or customers to your business.

Author: Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) and her business partner Yael K. Miller (@MillerMosaicLLC on Twitter) are committed to taking the mystery out of social media so that individuals and companies can utilize the power of social media to attract more business. Read about their new program Quick Start Social Media Track.

Now in 2010 I attended a meeting of a women’s professional group and came away from it much discouraged. The irony is that the speaker gave an excellent brief history of women’s rights and politicians from the ERA through today.  And, yet, earlier in the meeting, many of the successful, intelligent women present appeared proud of the fact that they didn’t even know how to fill out a simple bio on a social media site and they seemed disinclined to learn. Either they had assistants do it for them or they didn’t do it at all.

What’s the connection to Erica Jong’s book and this meeting (besides how disappointed Erica Jong would be that almost 40 years later women are still willing to be behind-the-times)?  Whether people like it or not, the Internet and social media sites such as Facebook are going to continue to play a bigger and bigger role in which opinions, which bills in Congress, which almost anything are going to be popular and which are not.

When a woman – or man – announces an inability to even post a bio online (and acts as if that is a badge of honor), that person is surrendering his/her life to having very little influence on the outcome of future events that may, in fact, be very important to him or her.  Yes, people can always join these sites at a later date. But when you start getting active on social media sites only when there’s something you really care about, you come from a position that is way behind where you could have been had you already been active on the major sites. In other words, if you haven’t built up goodwill through having many friends on Facebook, fans on Twitter, connections on LinkedIn, etc., you are basically starting from scratch at what may be a pivotal moment for your cause.

I urge both women and men to learn as much as possible about participating on social media sites. There are helpful books on Amazon, free reports, all kinds of ways to do this.  The important thing is to just do it!

Author: Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the social media marketing company Miller Mosaic Power Marketing.  Her company has a monthly mentorship program that you can read about here.