Social media is changing the way we communicate, the way we shop, do business and even the way we find love.

It’s believed to be causing the biggest cultural shift since the Industrial Revolution and the knock-on effects can be seen everywhere we look.

Take the traditional media industry for instance. Newspapers are in decline, advertising revenue is on a downward spiral and jobs are being cut left, right and centre as people increasingly ditch the broadsheet to get their news online.

And why wouldn’t they. The internet is fast, instant and can be accessed anywhere and everywhere. Whether it’s on our laptops at home, at the office computer or on our Iphones on the way home from work.

People can get the latest headlines at the click of a button and, more importantly, they can get involved in online debate. They can chat to others online about what’s happening in the world.

But it doesn’t stop there. Over 18 million households in the UK have access to the internet, eighty-three per cent of which shop online. The internet is in fact the first place we now look when we want to find products or services. We use search engines, like Google, to get the information we need.

We’ll look at reviews, written by other shoppers on the web. We’ll chat about them in forums and online communities. We’ll tweet about things on Twitter. We might even write our own blog post or upload our own video on YouTube or Vimeo, telling others about the good, bad and ugly products or services we’ve found.

It’s a huge online community and it’s all available at our fingertips.

So if you haven’t yet grasped just how crucial social media is, then you really need to start bringing it into your business plan. You need to be out there, talking to your customers and managing your online reputation.

“But is Twitter really worth it,” I hear you say… YES! It is! And if you’re not on there, you’re basically ignoring a whole world of potential new markets.

‘What about Facebook? Isn’t that just for fun?’ Well that’s how it started off but businesses can now advertise on there and create their own fan pages or groups – a brilliant and easy way to reach even more customers online.

‘But what’s the point of a blog? Isn’t it just, well…pointless?’ Writing a blog is a fantastic way to showcase your expertise to potential customers.

‘Ok I understand all of that, but what does it actually help with?’ Social media marketing and digital communications helps you to manage your reputation, raise your company profile and talk directly to your customers.

What’s more, it priortises Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, to help you achieve higher rankings in the natural, organic search engine listings. So that when people first load up Google or Yahoo to find what they’re looking for, your business will appear on their screens. To read more about SEO, see our article called ‘Make your website work harder through SEO and social media’.

Interested? Got your attention? Then give us a call. Unlike traditional PR agencies, we have a solid understanding of the web, SEO and how social media and online PR works. We see social media as a stand-alone medium and something that deserves our full attention.

Of course we do provide all the usual things you’d expect from a PR firm. It’s just that our focus is where your business also needs to be and that’s online.