You can't read this news item by Andrew Johnson in The Arizona Republic and come away still thinking blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos and the like are for fringe companies. Scanning the Arizona landscape of small and medium-sized businesses, Mr. Johnson spotlights a half dozen firms or more that have significantly expanded, extended and enriched their market presence via social media… in very creative ways.

To entice you to actually open the link and read the variety of impressive vignettes of some very original, very successful social media innovations, I've excerpted these two short paragraphs from Mr. Johnson's piece. They warn of the consequences for ignoring the trend, and explain why for some it can be so hard to evolve:

A lot is at stake. Companies that fail, marketing experts warn, will miss out on reaching target audiences and give up what little control they still have over their image.

"Most advertisers have been conditioned for many, many years to totally control their message," said Dan Santy, president of Tempe-based marketing firm Santy. "The Web takes all that control away."

Enjoy!

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