If you read about using social media to promote your business, you get the sense that you need to create a presence in all of them in order to be successful. So work on your facebook, twitter, youtube, linkedin, pinterest, etc.. profiles so that people can find you in all these forms of social media. This advice might make sense if you are a bigger business and have resources to dedicate to using these different social media effectively. Even then I'm not sure it is advisible. My suggestion is to pick one on them and make that one your main social media outlet. I've been reluctant to engage the social media surge for fear of wasting time online - I already spend enough time online. Nevertheless, I think the time has come for me to pick my poison - for me I think that poison will be YouTube.

Why YouTube? Well, for one, I already have 4 videos on YouTube. I can't claim any real expertise at this point in using it; but I have started using it to host some videos for a rental vacation property I own. I'm also starting to look into video editing so I can develop more professional looking videos. I have some ideas for content; maybe I can record Skype interviews and post these to YouTube as a form in interesting/useful content. I want to learn and experiment more with video and am not that concerned about making mistakes and posting some amateur footage as I learn more. Conversely, I worry about wasting time on Facebook. I created a facebook account under a false name and get spammed on a regular basis with friend requests. I don't use twitter myself much and don't have a cell phone (by choice) so I haven't looked into that option. Linkedin might be worth using as it is not a big committment of time; or at least appears not to be.

So maybe this will be one of my resolutions in 2013 - to become more proficient in social media, by which I mean, picking one of them, YouTube, and using it more to promote my business.

I still like to write in the essay format so blogging might be considered the social media that I already use. I will continue to work on my blog as a primary communications tool; but this year don't be suprised if my blog contains embedded YouTube videos that I have created. In case you are not aware, a few months ago, we made it easy for entrepreneurs to include YouTube presentations in their investment proposals. Entrepreneurs need to opt for the Express Plus or Global Express Plus package in order to access this feature.