Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs and YouTube can help provide links and content that improve SEO rankings. Social media also can get your company name out there to build brand awareness and visibility. And there are some metrics you can measure with social media: subscribers to your blog or the number of comments on a blog entry, the views of a video, your company fans on Facebook, etc.

But the real business benefit of social media is something called “likeability.” Social media offers your business an opportunity to showcase its people, rather than just its product or services. And in any business, people prefer to buy from people they like. If you use social media to help foster positive relationships, and your fans and followers begin to like you, they will be more inclined to do business with you.

They will like you because you are helpful to them, providing useful and relevant information. They will like you because you can show them a human personality-a face in a video, an opinion in a blog entry, a commitment to a green cause on your Facebook page-that a standard Web site cannot. These softer, social touches can go a long way when potential customers, who have many choices, are deciding which company they want to do business with.