Today we live in a media savvy world. Blogs, personal profiles, online videos — we willfully inundate ourselves with the piles of information that stream constantly, endlessly, out of the gaping maw that is Web 2.0. Today, even baby boomers are getting hip to social media in its many manifestations, and horrifying their children with requests to become “friends” on Facebook or MySpace. Yet, by joining the social media revolution, these post-grad professionals and business owners aren’t just looking for an easier or faster to keep in touch with their loved ones, though that is one of social media’s best and most obvious perks. Importantly, today, social media has pushed the personal business network into space — virtual space, that is — and made it practically limitless.

The repercussions are clear: today, you should be extra careful and extra diligent when it comes to choosing your social media outlets. Again, it’s worth emphasizing the distinction between social media that are put primarily to personal use — Facebook and MySpace being the two most popular outlets in this case — and social media that are put to networking and contact-building use — LinkedIn being a good example here. A person interested in optimizing their presence online should opt for both kinds of social media. For an illustration, check out the personal profiles established by SalemGlobal’s own Raphi Salem — here is his Facebook profile (don’t even ask us about the Trump-do), and here is his LinkedIn profile. Note that, unlike his Facebook profile, Raphi’s LinkedIn profile has an option to display outgoing links to Raphi’s relevant webpages, which is great for SEO. Additionally, Raphi’s LinkedIn profile gives precedence to Raphi’s professional background and allows him to list the industry he works in. Both his Facebook and his LinkIn profiles are publicly available, but the LinkedIn profile is simply better geared toward not only establishing a business persona, but toward conveniently directing potential contacts toward Raphi’s business.

So, the moral of the story goes something like this: if you’re going to be social, you might as well be REALLY social, and sign up for different social media outlets that will enable you to achieve both personal and business objectives. Because of Web 2.0, today, making new friends online can also mean making more money at home.