SmallBusinessNewz

As you know, business cards are an important tool for business networking. You hand them out to people at events, leave them on you desk/counter for people to follow up with you later, and leave them anywhere a potential business contact or customer can get to them.

Social networks can serve a similar purpose for businesses. Whereas a business card typically includes a phone number/fax, address, email address, etc to provide a path of communication, social networks have that path built right in.

Doesn't it make sense to bring the two together. I'm talking of course about including your social network info on your business card.

Some of you are no doubt already doing this and others still don't see social media as a worthwhile business tool. In the end, it's another way for you to represent your brand and for your customers and prospects to interact with you. You might as well make it easy for them to do so.

There are a few things that should probably be taken into consideration. The first being reputation management. Pertaining to business cards, it would be wise to only include profiles, which do not contain anything that can cast your business in a negative light. You may have a personal MySpace page that you only use to communicate with close friends and family, and a Twitter account or a Facebook profile that you use more for business communications. You should probably leave that personal one off.

There is also a distinct possibility that you have signed up for more social networks than you can keep up with, and in this case, it is probably a good idea to only include the social networks that you frequently attend to on your business card. You wouldn't include an old email address you no longer use would you?

The point is, business cards and social networks are both networking tools. Use them both, and use them together, and your business is bound to benefit. The more ways of communication you provide, the more accessible your business is.