Twitter.
Facebook.
YouTube.
Flickr.
Foursquare.
LinkedIn.
The Blogosphere.

It’s enough to make your head swim, really. With so many social media outlets available, it’s not surprising that more and more companies are hiring boatloads of enterprising young grads to strategize about it and manage it all. But that begs the question:

Does your business really need to be everywhere?

. . .and the answer is a resounding NO. Thinking that you need to have a presence on every social media channel in order to reach your customers is like thinking you have to go to every dance club in town in order to find a date.

Social media marketing, just like any kind of marketing, is all about communicating with your target market. You remember them, right? Those folks that you have determined already need and/or want what you’re offering?

And yeah, they’re out there using social media. But if your customer is the HR manager of a funeral home, she’s probably not using MySpace in a business capacity. You probably saw this one coming, but here’s my common-sense thought for the day:

When spending your social media bucks, make sure you’re channeling them toward
the sites your customers are actually using.

So what this means is that Jerry, who loves country line dancing, doesn’t really need to be hanging out at the punk shows looking for a girlfriend. He’d have much better luck meeting his soul mate at the sh*tkicker bar down the street.

So the moral of the story is: If your customers don’t use LinkedIn, don’t feel a pressing need to build out an extensive presence there. By the same token, if you’ve found that your customers are more likely to purchase based upon a product demo, get yourself over to YouTube and put on a spiffy show for them that they can watch again and again.

And keep your fingers crossed for Jerry.