Gary Vaynerchuk talks about not buying into buzz words like “social media”.

Their is more to promoting your business than using “social media”.

Think bigger in 2012 and discover how you can integrate your communications and the growing internet audience.

The Amish don’t use computers but their example of a simple lifestyle can be applied to effective website design. Simplicity in a website can make your information extremely functional and helpful to your customers. Look at how you can do more with less when telling your story on your website. Copyblogger has a great post with more details comparing the Amish lifestyle to smart web design at the link below.

In a world of surfers, all you can do is work to make the best wave you can. The real revolution is that you get to make waves, not just ride them.

What waves are you making?

When it comes to marketing strategies, content marketing has just been crowned king, far surpassing search engine marketing, public relations and even print, television and radio advertising as the preferred marketing tool for today’s business-to-business entrepreneur.

Late this summer, HiveFire, a Cambridge, Mass.-based internet marketing software solutions company, surveyed nearly 400 marketing professionals about the state of the business-to-business, or B2B, market, and discovered that marketers are retreating from traditional marketing tactics such as search marketing and have made content marketing the most-used tactic in their brand-enhancing tool box. Fact is, according to HiveFire’s B2B Marketing Trends Survey Report, twice as many B2B marketers now employ content marketing as they do print, TV and radio advertising, according to the survey.

So what exactly is content marketing? It’s the creation and publication of original content — including blog posts, case studies, white papers, videos and photos — for the purpose of generating leads, enhancing a brand’s visibility, and putting the company’s subject matter expertise on display. HiveFire’s researchers found that an impressive 82 percent of B2B marketers now employ content marketing as a strategy in their marketing programs. Coming in at a distant second place is search engine marketing at 70 percent, followed by events at 68 percent, public relations at 64 percent and print/TV/radio advertising at 32 percent.

One of the best ways for small businesses to connect with their customers is through sharing their story on line. Meaningful information that helps solve customer challenges and helps build stronger relationships is a big benefit that can be built through valuable content marketing.

Social media marketers feel that having a presence on social sites is more important than advertising there, but there are still challenges related to keeping a community running online.

In July 2011, Microsoft Advertising and Advertiser Perceptions surveyed social media marketers in six countries around the world and found that 74% of them thought it was very important to have a presence on Facebook, but only 57% felt the same way about advertising there. On Twitter, presence also carried more weight, with 47% of respondents saying they thought it was very important. But in Twitter’s case, there was not as much of a difference between presence and advertising, at 42%.

And engagement in social media channels is more important than simply being present. Connecting, being helpful, authentic and providing value to your customers is becoming more important than ever. With the recent changes to Facebook’s activity streams engagement is necessary to show up in the top posts part of people’s personal walls.

It is in the best interest of every business to be paying attention to their customers in social media channels and create real customer value in these networks.