If You Build It - They Will Come

Kevin Costner was onto something in the popular 1989 block buster film Field of Dreams. No, I'm not talking about investing in a multi-million dollar ballpark, or even spending a couple of grand on a new office building. What I'm talking about is a much simpler investment, and it's listed at everybody's favorite price - free! If you build a Facebook page people will "like" it; if you have a Twitter account customers will follow you. If your business is on LinkedIn people will connect with you - do you get it, or shall I continue?

Social Media is taking the business world by a storm, and if you don't jump on the bandwagon now you will simply be left behind. Remember the good old days when business owners knew your first name, and when customers were more than just walking dollar signs? - I don't, but I hear my parents gripe about it all the time. Really Mom and Dad, you are only aging yourself more when you start your sentences with the phrase "I remember when I was your age..." - let's just say I'm glad you are still able to recall those timely memories.

If you are like me and have grown up in the era where "sell, sell, sell" has been the motto of every business you've come into contact with, and where consumer interaction has taken a back seat in businesses nationwide, than your time has come. Leading social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have proven that business people and consumers were not solely created to prove the economic theory of supply and demand. In fact, not only are we the same species, but you might even find that you have similar interests as Jim in the sales division at your local Ikea outlet.

Social media is now allowing businesses and consumers to once again interact in ways other than strictly sales transactions. Just the other day Caribou Coffee asked its fans to tell them what they were doing to beat the heat wave that kept most Midwesterners indoors thanking God for inventions like central air. Who would have thought that you could have a conversation with someone in business that didn't involve the words buy, sell, or discount? Hey - we're human too! My boss spent his weekend at his cabin fishing off his pontoon and drinking a couple of cold ones, how many of you can say the same? - I'm sure that's not where the similarities stop either.

Critics of social media, aka Mom and Dad, might complain about the lost art of face-to-face interaction. The truth of the matter is business people and consumers alike don't have time to stay physically connected with one another - heck, people have a hard time keeping in touch with their own flesh and blood without the help of sites like Facebook. These social media platforms allow businesses to, in a sense, freeze time - they are able to stay connected to their consumers when it's convenient, and consumers have the same luxury. An added bonus is not only can you read about who is doing what, but you can see it via picture postings and video uploads.

The moral of the story here is this - if you are a business and you are not on some form of social media site than you better sit down and ask yourself, why not? People like to share, so what better way to let the consumer's voice be heard than on the world wide web? In the case of to build a social media page for your business, or not? I choose build it - because believe me, they will come.