Probably not the same 7lb. mini-me like I have, but I suspect that how to make more money is probably on the minds of a good number of people. With the economy still down, even those who are doing well are insecure. For some, the challenges of how to compete in the future may weigh on their minds. If you have a lot of mouths to feed, employees and dependents of employees, you don’t take your responsibilities lightly.

To that end, you may have had to do lay-offs, surely cut costs, and constrained the world-domination plans (well, at least market domination). With the glimmer of hope that the recession will end, you and your team are starting to do planning for jumping on the recovery.

You are starting to look at product releases, eyeing markets that don’t seem as competitive, possible acquisitions, and even possibly, someday… large scale hiring. As the world recovers, what is different? Sounds like the last recovery….

Yes and no. Yes, the business factors are the same, no in that social media is going to fundamentally shift your business. Much like the web did in the last decade, this will be disruptive. Not a fad, not a maybe… I am here to tell you that it is coming.

Don’t see it? Well, pull up a copy of the Fortune 50 list from the late 80′s and compare the list to the late 90′s… a lot of seat changes… Social media represents social search which is really tapping into the emotional side of buying. Don’t think emotions play into your markets? Words like TRUST, VALUE, DECISION are emotional words… the market is discounting advertising messaging and weighing referential opinions and reviews much higher that the all of the marketing messaging. They are fact checking you, asking your customers, doing their own buyer reports…

Social media is disruptive. For those who can socially-enable their business, markets, communities, products, and organizations; change will allow you to grow much faster than the competitors, for the rest if will be an uphill battle….