The Digital Handshake: Seven Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Social Media

Foreword: Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs

Look, you're busy. You have a business to run, payroll to make, decisions to weigh, widgets to create, things to manage and prioritize and direct...and a million other demands on your time: Can you really afford to read this book?

But here's the reality in which you are doing business today: You are operating in a very different market these days. In other words, things have changed.

The notion of marketing your products or your services to your customers by interrupting them repeatedly through advertising isn't enough anymore—not in the current business climate. Creating awareness about your company or your brand through mass media like newspaper advertising, magazine callouts, or any sort of broadcasting medium doesn't go far enough. The same holds true for PR campaigns that beg reporters to pay attention to your products or to tell your company's story. In the end, those strategies sell your brand short.

The advent of the Internet and, more specifically, the rise of Web-based tools and technologies, have given your customers a new voice. Suddenly—thanks to blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and other social and online networking technologies—your customers are empowered to demand more of the companies they do business with. They are using their newfound voices to talk to you as well as to converse with each other. They will howl ...