I realized after attending the Microsoft SparkStart event that I often repeat the same advice over and over again, just with a new angle. So instead of doing that today, I'm going to point you to posts I wrote over the last year that still make sense right now! Believe it or not, the social media game hasn't changed that much in a year. In fact, marketing as a whole hasn't changed that much, we just use a different medium.

So here are some posts that might be relevant for you today:

Why Social Media is important:

• Social Media: Personal Touch in a Virtual World
• The Business of Social Media

The Facts:

• Facebook: Making the Rest of Us Look Bad
• Tools for your Belt: Demographics & Surveys

The Etiquette:

• Top 5 Ineffective Social Media Accounts
• Social Media Compared to Offline Networking

A lot of the truths of marketing still exist in the digital age. Are there any principles you use over and over again in your own marketing (online or off)?

I write a lot about social media and what it can do for business. Today I want to get down to the heart of what it means for a company to be involved. First, as times continue to change, as the baby-boomers retire and the kids of yesterday are becoming adults, the demands customers make change as well. Right now 51% of adult social media users think companies should maintain a social media presence (from emarketer).

More and more customers are expecting to have a relationship with a company, not just one or two buying experiences. They want to be able to ask questions, get immediate answers, and know what's coming up. Unfortunately, the increase in demand for interaction is not being met. Most companies are far behind, failing to keep pace.

Why have a social media presence? Because as our world becomes more and more digital, we are losing that sense of personal communication. We call customer service and get a recorded voice. Recorded voices call our answering machines. We receive automated email. Most customers don't have the time to browse a store and ask a sales rep a million questions that they may or may not have an answer to. But if a customer can find time online to interact with a social presence and feel like someone knowledge is spending personal time with them, it makes all the difference.