Businesses (from all industries) continue to move more and more of their advertising dollars into Social Media sites like Facebook, according to this report from Nielsen. The growth has been partially fueled by the explosive growth in popularity of Facebook – a site most advertisers head to first according to the report. The amount of time Americans spend on social sites has almost tripled from August of last year, accounting for 17% of all time spent on the internet.

It’s not a trick question, it is the primary thing your prospects and customers need to know about your business. Unfortunately, in the midst of all the effort we spend on communicating, advertising, lead-generating, educating, selling… somehow we can easily lose sight of addressing this simple question. Why? Maybe it’s because day-to-day we spend more time wrapping our heads around our own business, and not seeing it from our customer’s perspective. When we think of ourselves we tend to think in terms of benefits and features, not why those features and benefits matter. These things matter automatically to us – after all, it is what we do – but not so with our customers. They need to be told WHY they matter. They need to be shown the VALUE.

The old saying, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” has been used so often that it’s message is taken for granted these days. However, there’s a hidden message in that phrase that has a great deal of pertinence to business and marketing.

We are bombarded daily – no, minute-by-minute – with messages. “Buy my product – it’s better!” “Buy my service – it’s cheaper!” “Do business with me – I’m faster!”