Smart Ways Retailers Can Incorporate Social Media Into Marketing Plans

In today's retail climate, a successful business can't afford to exclude social media. The desired 18-year-old to 49-year-old demographic is very much wired in.

The social media universe is growing — Facebook debuted 10 years ago and has been joined by Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram, Flickr, Tumblr and others. As of September 2012, Facebook had 1 billion active users. The same year, Twitter had 500 million registered users posting 340 million tweets a day. Google+ launched in 2011 and is second only to Facebook for social networking, with 540 million active users each month. Many of these users come from interacting with Gmail and YouTube, both owned by Google.