I guarantee it. If you (a) have customers and (b) need to generate profits to continue operations, social media is about to revolutionize your business. I can predict this based upon the following observations:

• Every network ever developed – from the creation of railroads and the electricity grid – has a significant and growing impact on business, especially in their ability to generate new industries, and this is always underestimated at the time. The highway network led to ‘drive-thru’ restaurants, and the Internet has spawned countless new opportunities.
• In the emergence of each new development in the network, many predict the new changes as a fad. Bill Gates famously underestimated the impact of the Internet, a failure which likely marked the beginning of the demise of Microsoft. When email first emerged, it was broadly considered a waste of time and is now a primary form of communication.
• Shorter and faster communication methods always win. Email replaced postal mail. Text messaging is replacing email. And Tweeting is replacing text messaging. What’s next?
• The improvements and innovations in networks increase an exponential rate.

Convinced yet?

Specifically, social networks have a fundamental and unique quality unlike any network before them: they fuse the social instinct of people with the techological capabilities of an electronic network. This has never happened before and will have a profound impact on the way we communicate with others, the surface of which has barely been scratched.

• 3 out of 4 Americans now use social technology, as do two thirds of the global population.
• Time on social networks now accounts for 10% of all online time, and is growing at 3x the rate of online usage.
• More media has been published on YouTube than has been produced by all the studios and media companies combined, ever.

If Craigslist destroyed the classifieds business, and Google News is like acid to the fabric of newspapers, imagine what microblogging is going to do to television news.

Still not convinced?

Some more thoughts:

• Your customers are using social media and 93% of its users believe companies should have a presence in social media..
• Companies are generally doing a terrible job at social media, attempting the continuation of one-way broadcasting that has defined the history of marketing.
• Social media represents the best ROI for any marketing channel, including email which had a $47 return per $1 spent in 2007 (compare that to a quoted $2-for-$1 rate for printed newspaper ads).

Need concrete examples?

• Tara Hunt’s book The Whuffie Factor illustrates how companies can flourish or fail on their social media reputation. Her case study on how Dell embraced social media to turn around their terrible online reputation will in years become a model case, much like the way business schools present Henry Ford. High quality customer service is helping businesses grow faster than ever.
• Warner Bros blames “total concept rejection” for the rapid failure of some summer movies. Films that used to survive two weeks before word of mouth spread now only survive 12 hours thanks to social media. Poor quality products are failing faster than ever.
• Even smaller businesses in diverse industries are finding that user review sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor are dramatically affecting their businesses, especially if the reviews are good. People listen to their peers’ opinions more than sales pitches in commercials.

What should you do?

Social media offers a unique opportunity to connect and listen to your customers. No more customer surveys or attempt to suppress customer complaints – people are talking about you, and you need to listen. Your existing customers are your best marketers – or they can do more damage than your worst competitors.

This is not just Twitter. This is not just Facebook. This is:

1. Customer Service
2. Public Relations
3. Building customer loyalty
4. Generating business
5. Crowd sourcing
6. Collaboration
7. Networking

… in fact, it’s your sales and marketing departments combined. Social media is going to forever change your business. Let’s make some customers happy.