I've heard people refer to the social media landscape as the Wild West. As a marketing tool, social media is clearly a vast space of infinite possibility for marketers and service providers. At the same time, however, it is largely misunderstood, untapped, and unknown. The key is that there are great benefits for print service providers who can pioneer this area.

Social media is designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media should support the human need for social interaction, using web-based networks to create conversations and transform broadcast media monologues (one-to-many) into social media dialogues (one-to-one or many-to-many). Every company and institution must function as a social brand due to the mass adoption and penetration of social media in our lives as citizens and customers.

Print service providers should look at social media from two perspectives. First, it is an effective tool that supports and promotes a printing business and builds a strong reputation. Secondly, it is becoming a strong value-added service and a new source of revenue for service providers that figure out how to be true pioneers.

This article explores the ways in which service providers are leveraging social networks to promote their businesses. Next week's article will discuss how social media services are becoming a new and rapidly expanding business opportunity for service providers.

In the 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, Mike Stelzner asked 1,900 marketers how they're using social media. While almost all B2C marketers (over 96%) use Facebook as a marketing tool, the same was true for only 87% of B2B brands. This barely surpasses the adoption of LinkedIn (87%) and Twitter (84%). B2B marketers are also more likely to use blogs (65% vs. 57%) and Google+ (44% vs. 36%).

While almost all B2C marketers (over 96%) use Facebook as a marketing tool, the same was true for only 87% of B2B brands.