Social media marketing for your business---it's worth it!

Many business owners seem to have misconceptions about social media marketing. They might think it is too time consuming, or too expensive or it would not be effective. Different social media sites have varying pros and cons, and marketing on Facebook is not the same as Twitter, Pinterest, You Tube, Four Square, Google+ or others. Nevertheless, in this day and age, business owners who do not use these sites are missing out on ways to promote their products or services. Many times the promotion via these sites is free. Sure, one can buy paid advertisements, but a lot can be accomplished with zero cost to the business owner. It doesn't have to be time consuming either. A site such as hootsuite.com can automate posts to appear on many social media platforms. A whole week of messages could be scheduled in advance. It does require some effort and creativity though. Companies need to post frequently and the messages need to be well written, so they will get the attention of followers. Posting photos and videos can be effective to keep people engaged. The biggest companies use social media for marketing. Look at the auto industry for example. The Facebook page for General Motors has 450,000 likes. Ford's Facebook page has 1.7 million likes. Chrysler has 634,000 likes on their Facebook page. Would companies like these waste time and resources with social media if it was not effective? I have been impressed with how LEGO uses You Tube to promote their products. They make original videos to put on their site, that show off their products effectively. The LEGO You Tube channel has over 50,000 subscribers and over 23 million video views. Here's a link to their channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/LEGO.