By Gail Z. Martin

When you’re starting your own business, you need every edge to make the most of a slippery recovery.  Yet many new business owners fail to integrate social media in their marketing arsenal due to common, yet mistaken, ideas about what social media is (or isn’t) and how social media works.  By incorporating social media in your marketing strategy from the beginning, you give your company the best head start possible.

Social media is a concept that embraces thousands of different types of sites, online communities and helper applications. At the heart of social media is the old fashioned concept of networking within a community. Once you realize that social media is really networking by another name, it can be a lot easier to allocate time to invest in creating a presence for your business. And where most real-life networking events or trade shows have a limited geographic range and schedule, social media is a global opportunity that never sleeps.

Myth #1: Social Media is just for kids. It’s true that Facebook started out as a platform just for college students at select schools. But that’s ancient history by Internet standards. Take a look on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, and you’ll see marketing giants like the Mayo Clinic, AARP, 3M and others who understand the value of being where their customers are already congregating.
Browse profiles, and you’ll see that social media isn’t just for teens. A large and growing percentage of users are over 30 years old. There are no shortage of sites for midlife women, retirees, mid-career » Read more: Career Transition: Are Social Media Myths Stalling Your New Business?