1. Facebook has amazing scale.  Measurement firm comScore says there were more than 57 million unique visitors on the site in January 2009.  Think any were your customers, employees and partners?
2. All kinds of kids wrote notes and tagged each other — the jocks, the nerds, the band kids.  Being tagged was like watching a John Hughes movie, especially when the adults who came of age in the 1980s began tagging each other.  This cut across race, gender and some age lines.If you are not actively engaged or employ someone actively engaged in social media, the train is already at the next station and leaving.  Don’t know when another one is coming by, but I would sure move down the tracks instead of hoping to catch the next one.  After all, Facebook appears to be an express, and you may end up riding the local.
3. Brand yourself.   Don’t lie, but don’t post your family secrets either.  This was an opportunity to brand yourself to 25 individuals and some extension of their circle of acquaintances.
4. People who used the ’25 Things’ meme as anything other than branding – for future growth or past acomplishments – really missed the boat too.  Maybe your train will catch up with them if you managed to find a train now.
5. If you are a business leader and think your kids and their friends are the only ones who microblog about their lives while simultaneously texting and watching television, you’re sadly mistaken.
6. If you don’t know about microblogging, check the travel agent and see if there is one of those fancy airships to catch up to the train and boat ahead of you.
7. Leaders don’t dismiss trends.  Leaders leverage trends.  Which did you do?

No, I won’t give you 25 things to read.  Eight is enough to convince you that social marketing has a place in your business.   An actual forced number, in this case the number was 25, only provides structure.  As a small business leader, you have plenty to go on here. You don’t have to be involved, but you better be aware and you better be understand.  Failing to do both will start the countdown for when you are no longer relevant to reaching your audience.