These days there are those who would argue you would have to be living under the proverbial rock to not have at least heard of social media. Even those out there who arent even slightly internet savvy have heard of Facebook or MySpace. Social media are the tools that are utilised by just such sites, and there is an increasing number of businesses out there that are developing a presence in this field as well.

With a tool such as Facebook there are businesses out there that are developing enormous followings, and this is an advantageous step to take. If you have everything in good working order, and you are well connected with your customers, then social media gives you an opportunity to feel updates directly to your customers own pages. This makes it one of the easiest possible ways to keep your customers or potential customers up to date with everything you are doing, all from the one place and simultaneously. Even email cant boast being quite so streamlined!

Another popular new social media tool that has taken off in a big way, is Twitter. This is toll that sends out short messages, around 140 characters max. To those linked into receive your updates. As with Facebook this is a direct line of communication with your customers, and if you are clever with how you use these short and sharp tweets you can get your message across to your customers in a witty and succinct format. There is also the possibility for those interested to have this linked into their mobile phones, receiving your twitters as text messages. For the originator of the tweet, it is possible to link your tweets into your web page or blog via an RSS feed.

This brings us to the other social media platform that has shown phenomenal expansion over the last little while, blogging. Few of us arent familiar with blogging these days, so the question that many are asking is how it is of benefit to a business. Well as with Facebook or Twitter this is a great format that allows direct communication with customers.

Creating a business blog however, allows you to go much further than this. For starters a blog is not limited to 140 characters! That said, a blog provides you with the opportunity to show your expertise in your area of business. You can communicate new ideas and developments to your customers and communicate with them via the blog space. Customers have the opportunity to leave comments and this allows you to develop better understanding of their particular needs.

These are only a few of the social media opportunities that are available, there is a number of others that are also worthwhile exploring if you are serious about using this format to grow your business. If you are ready to start linking in with customer and expanding and developing your direct communications, then these options are worth taking the time to explore. As marketing tools go these are some of the cheapest and easiest forms of direct communication tools around. Investigate which options to pursue, and consider the fairly small outlay for getting these up and running. Especially these tools may hold great appeal for the small business owner with the bottom line to consider.