Social Networking for Business - is it worth it?

Ahh the days of newsgroups, and flaming wars, life was so much simpler

Social media should definitely be a priority as millions of people use it which means these websites have millions of potential customers

Social networking websites play a great role in terms of giving online recognition to any website. It takes some time to build a networking on these websites, however once the network is built promoting your business and posts becomes easy.

With globalization and the rise of technology social media serves as a platform for pulling customers irrespective of geographical boundaries. I think that all businesses should incorporate social media into their client engagement processes or risk getting left behind.

I think it definitely depends on the business.
My business is not designed for the masses therefore social marketing is not high on my priority list.
If you're business is designed for the masses then sure it will work for you.

If your business is targetted towards the masses there is no guarantee that social media will work for your business but you will have a bigger scope/audience to aim you service/product at. That being said you do need to have a good strategy in place.

Social media is absolutely useful for businesses - it's free marketing. It's also worth nothing that marketing itself is now 50% digital, 50% physical. Social media's a large part of digital marketing - it's going to be even bigger going forward.

Get your point by what you mean by free marketing but it isn't always the case that it is free. you have companies who pay for facebook ads and and other services. Also it cost time if a individual or company decides to do it themselves. But yes when it done right it can pay off and be worthwhile.

Not sure how much big social media will be in future in regards to marketing and digital media. Lets wait and see.

You're right, I should have meant in comparison to traditional marketing - and particularly outbound marketing - it's less expensive.

I think more discussion is needed when talking of choosing a target audience, especially because this is one of the factors which may decide whether your business will take off or crash to the earth. Exactly how does social media relate to targeting an audience?