By Kent Lewis, President of Anvil Media, Inc.

1. Your customers and competitors are already there; they’re joining in droves every day and can’t be ignored.

2. Social media offers an excellent resource for research and development; your constituents are helping your products and services evolve (world’s most affordable focus group – if you’re listening).

3. Social media offers affordable, efficient service and support medium(DIY videos, images, blogs, wikis, etc.).

4. Social media offers an excellent industry/competitive research vehicle (we use it for keyword trending and development of SEM messaging and offers).

5. Social media offers effective techniques for online reputation management.

6. Social media offers a proven platform for customer engagement and empowerment (Lion Brand Facebook case study).

7. Social media offers proven ad platforms, including Facebook and LinkedIn, if it’s targeted, timely and relevant (DIBroker case study).

8. It’s highly measurable, yet difficult to measure, but you win either way (Wal-Mart’s Glad Bag theory).

9. Large brands are helping refine and validate ad revenue models, as well as police the social media space for everyone else.

10. According to research, socially engaged organizations are more profitable (ENGAGEMENTdb, eMarketer).