I’m a social butterfly when I’m in public and when I’m online it’s really no different, so it’s only natural that I enjoy social media. Of course, since becoming a mom, I’ve enjoyed social media even more. Why? Well, because 2 days after I became a mother, I took a layoff from my full time job of 10+ years, which turned my part-time freelance writing hobby into a full time job.

I used to work with the public on a daily basis – all day long, every single day. I enjoyed the social aspect of my job because I love people…well, most people. We all run across at least a few that just aren’t very pleasant to be around for one reason or another. But the change was a big one for me because I went from working with a large team that dealt with the public daily to working from a home office by myself. That’s when social media became more than just a fun thing to do for a few minutes before I logged off of the computer.

There were several other reasons that I started using social media so heavily. You see, the social networks are not only a platform for friends and family to contact each other and share information. These networks are also a wonderful method of no to low cost marketing for you and your business or blog. Think about how much traffic you can generate just by using social media!

Obviously, social media is a great tool to help connect you to your audience, but it’s so much more than that. By establishing the lines of communication with your audience, you are effectively opening the door to suggestions, questions, opinions and ideas from your target market. You don’t have to pay a polling corporation to find out what your customers think or want – you just ask them!

I use five different social networks on a daily basis, but there are countless more that I belong to and participate in regularly enough to be recognized. My top five faves?

1. Facebook – you just can’t deny the power of Facebook. It’s user friendly, there are lots of great apps and you can use it on the go.
2. Twitter – great for attention grabbing headlines, short answer feedback, feeds and announcements.
3. LinkedIn – the professional version of Facebook, it’s a great site to use to keep in touch with professional and personal contacts alike.
4. StumbleUpon – this site makes it easy to share your content and the content of others at the click of a button. Great for getting a better picture of what your audience is really gravitating to.
5. Digg – another great sharing site that makes it a breeze to show others what you “digg” and find out what they “digg.”

Of course, sometimes there is an additional bonus to signing up with a social network. For instance, right now, StumbleUpon is promoting their site by offering you the chance to earn a $10 Amazon gift card for every 5 friends that you get to join that are NEW to StumbleUpon. The limit? None.  You can refer as many people as you want and get credit for every 5 referrals in the form of gift cards to one of the most popular online shopping destinations. Pretty cool, right?

Here’s how you do it:

- Sign up for StumbleUpon.

- Go HERE after signing up and use the email address that you used to sign up to generate your unique referral link.

- Once you get your link, promote it like crazy!

Yeah, NOW you like social media! ;-D

Anyway, back to the subject of why you should get social…

The thing about social media is that it has the potential to make something viral. For those of you who are somewhat new to this term, it means the same thing as “spreading like wildfire.” That’s what you want – as long as it’s good news, of course.

When I started this blog in June of 2011, I thought that I would be at the back of the line for years, but I thought about my promotion options and decided that social media had to be integrated immediately in order to give this blog the best shot possible. You know what? It has worked out pretty well so far. Here’s the lowdown…

On June 30th 2011, Moms Living Thrifty’s first blog post went live. At that point, the site had an Alexa Rank of 2,868,000 (something like that). In less than four months, I’ve been able to  move that rank to a worldwide rank of 311,302 and a U.S. rank of 52,893. Not too bad for a first time blogger. So, I’m thinking in another 8 months and as long as I keep my nose to the grindstone, I might  just be able to make it to the top 25,000 – fingers crossed!

That said, I feel like there is no reason to wait to start using social media for your blog or any other website you own. If you want to connect with your audience, you’ve got to take the time to get to know them and interact with them. Genuinely caring about your interaction with your readers or customers doesn’t hurt either.
So what are you waiting for? Get out there and start being social!