The times they are a changin' – Bob Dylan, 1964

Yes, the times are changin'. Social media marketing is “where it’s at” if you want to grow your business. Here are my top 10 tips to help you along the way.

1 Take the Time to Tweet – Spend an hour a day on twitter.com – your small investment in time will result in a wider audience for you and your services and your products.

2 Be a Good Blogger – Don’t blog about you and your coffee or dog. Blog about stuff that will help people – or that, at least, will be of interest to most folks. (See Jim Harmer's comment below. He says the same thing this way: Content is King.)

3 Get Face-time on Facebook/Have Fun on Flicker – Use Facebook and Flicker to show off your work – for free! Expand your audience – again, for free.

4 Have Fun on Forums – Participate in forums that can help others in your field and that can help you get your message across.

5 Be on Bit.ly – A must. Use this site to track the number of hits on a link. Cool!

6 You Do It On YouTube – Post videos that relate to your business. Keep them fun, entertaining and informative. And short.

7 Invest in Being Interactive – Do all of the above as often as practical to maintain your visibility.

8 You Snooze You Lose – Don’t do all of the above as often as possible, and you’ll lose out on an increased audience – and maybe even lose part of your existing audience.

9 Keep Up with Technology – Stuff like twitter and bit.ly are relatively new. Keep up with technology so you can keep up with your competition.

10 Know Your Audience – As with all marketing efforts, it’s important to know your audience. Don’t waste your time, or anyone’s time, on relatively useless information.

Hey, leave a comment about your involvement is social media marketing - even if you are just getting your feet wet. I'd love to hear what you are doin' - in these changin' times.