I have been thinking about this topic for awhile now and have the opportunity to write about it today. Why, you may ask, should a business care about social media? I have asked this question and never really understood it until I became a review blogger. Do you have any idea how many bloggers are out there? Or, how many Facebook members are typing their statuses throughout the day? I would bet that there isn't a second that goes by that someone isn't updating their Facebook status.

Today, I wanted to give you a few reasons why I think that Social Media should be important to businesses today...both online businesses and physical businesses.

1. Businesses have reputations. If you are a business, of any kind, then you probably have customers. These customers often tell others of their experience with you and ultimately, that should lead to you getting more customers. I have seen some businesses (who have Facebook pages) recently become the center attention simply because they treated a customer/employee badly. Having a nice business facebook page design can often detract from upset customers and this would greatly help any business that is struggling. Keeping a good reputation is important and social media can help with that.

2. Social Media builds exposure. As a blogger, I have found that some businesses approach me simply because they want to get their product/service out where people can find it more easily. Obviously, larger blogs have a better chance of getting them more exposure but smaller blogs can too! It is all in key word linking and wording. Believe it or not, blogs can have a HUGE impact on a company and their product.

3. Social Media can help OR hinder a business. If a customer has a problem with a company, sometimes they find that their best outlet for venting can be the Internet. This has been the case with many Facebook users. They can go to the company's Facebook page and leave comments there. They can also use their Twitter account to try and vent. This can be really bad for a business because things on the Internet go "viral" in short amounts of time. So, as a business, you should really strive to keep your customers happy and taken care of the minute they have a problem or issue.

Those are just a few thoughts I had on the topic of businesses caring about Social Media. The Internet is a powerful and very effective tool. Used properly, it can really help a business or, if you are not careful and don't care about you customers, can really hurt you as a business. Maybe after today you will see Social Media in a totally different light.