By now, most business owners have been told that they need to not only utilize search engine marketing, but also leverage the power of social networking for their business as well. They’ve been told that establishing a social media presence online for their business will lead to greater brand awareness, more leads and increased profits. But many business owners are still skeptical, mostly because they don’t truly understand how social networking works. Naturally, this leads them to wonder whether or not social networking is really just a waste of time and money. Well, is it?

The answer is yes, and no.

Social networking is a complete waste of time for your business if you don’t have a coordinated social media marketing strategy in place. Why? Because using social networking to promote your business isn’t like placing an ad in the yellow pages, the newspaper or on the radio where you just sit back and wait for the calls to come in.

In order to achieve a worthwhile return on investment for your time, your social networking campaigns need to be well planned, and most importantly, they need to be consistent. Just like search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns, social networking requires on-going, consistent effort to produce results. Simply creating an account for your business and making an occasional post, or a tweet or video isn’t enough.

Now, many business owners will read that statement "on-going, consistent effort" and cringe, because it means more expenses. But this is entirely the wrong attitude to take. Social networking is one of the most cost effective ways to promote a business, period. No other form of advertising allows your business to connect with such a huge audience of targeted prospects. Even if you decide to hire an expert SEO company that specializes in social media to manage your social networking campaigns, the return on investment will far outweigh any expenses, especially when compared to traditional forms of advertising.

There’s a famous saying in business, "Go where the money is" and today the money is in social networking. No matter what your market is, your audience is out there, right now and they are actively engaged on social media sites. That’s where they hang out. So if you want to connect with them, and introduce them to your brand, your products or your services, that’s where you need to be.