I watched an excellent interview of Gary Vaynerchuk this morning by MSNBC - http://video.garyvaynerchuk.com/tv-appearances/business/msnbc-morning-joe-march-9-2011. Gary was promoting his new book called The Thank You Economy. He talks about how social media is changing society.  Social media is becoming a part of our lives so much so that we don't even know we are using it. We are enhancing our relationships by using social media to communicate.

A wider sphere of reach

One of the most eye-opening statements Gary made was about orange juice. In today's social media society, if we try a product we like we tweet about it, update our Facebook status about it and that information gets passed on to all our friends and followers. Before the age of social media, that type of information would have only been shared with a very small few.

Praise and complaints are more powerful

If we go into a restaurant and we hate the service or food, we might tell this to a handful of people. If we use social media and gripe about our experience, the impact it has on the restaurant is major. The same is true if we praise a vendor. Now with the way search is being conducted, tweets and status updates are being delivered to our social groups and this means more of a chance for this type of info to get out.

That means for companies, keeping an ear to the social ground is absolutely vital. I recently vented on Twitter about a problem I was having. The vendor was watching and within a few days the issue was resolved.  Will I go back to that vendor? Sure I will.  They reached out to help solve the problem and showed excellence in customer service.

How has social media impacted your life in any way?