Is social media useful for promote a business?

[Flying Saucers Are Real.]

I'm a little concerned that my competition will find a way to access my clients if I create a social media page. I would enjoy hearing some real experiences and advice on how to avoid possible pitfalls.

[Bamie Buu]

Depends what your target market is. If it's an older age group social media can be a consideration, but for a younger age group it's not a question - it's a must for your business. Everyone is on social media nowadays. It creates brand awareness for your company, and also will make it easy to see who 'likes" or "follows" your company which can be a form of an analytical tool for your business. There are various privacy settings with different social media pages that can allow you to limit how much people can see on your page.

[Garrett Moon]

Social media is not only useful, but absolutely necessary. The simple fact is that Google is the new yellow pages and Facebook/Twitter just the way that people expect to communicate now. Not being there can actually be hurting your business.

Now, I don't really know your type of business, but I would't worry about the competition too much. Generally a lot of businesses provide content that their clients find helpful, not content about their clients. With this in mind, if you really invest the time and effort into understanding and using social media for your business you are probably more likely to make your competition irrelevant than more informed.

If you offer a great product and have a solid competitive advantage already, than social media should only aid that.