That’s how one of my favorite Entourage character’s Bob Ryan would put one of the many benefits that Social Media marketing can provide for your small business.  For small businesses anything that is free is great, but is it really?  The old adage that you get what you pay for is the rule that ultimately wins out in most of these situations.  A free service usually means that you or someone else in your organization is going to have to take the time to learn, manage, maintain and market the social media services.  To that end, you would then need to ask your self can you afford to become a social media expert or can you afford to pay an employee to become one?

A social media asset can be a tremendous one if you know how to use it.  It can tell you how many customers are in your area.  What they like about service or product.  What they do not like about your service? A host of other insights about the view of your brand internally and externally.   And if you set up a program to engage them and offer something of value it can let you know how frequently they purchase your product or service and the list of benefits can go on and on and on.  The caveat is how much time are you willing to allocate and since I am assuming that social media and marketing is not your business how much value is it siphoning off of your core business.