“I used to walk to school 10 miles uphill!” turned into “We didn’t have TV when I was a kid.” and then turned into “Can you imagine a time without cell phones?”  Well, I think it’s time we acknowledge our new dependence.  Social networking is the new technology we can’t live without.

I was on the computer the other night for a couple hours.  I was reading tweets, Facebook chatting, and streaming YouTube videos.  Before I knew it, I had wasted the whole night just looking at what exciting things other people were doing.  The crazy part is that a lot of my other friends were online the whole time as well.  Our social lives have become dependent on these sites.  We reconnect, send invitations, and even get dates through social networking sites.

So how can we, as digital marketers, take advantage of this?  According to this article, 350 million people have Facebook accounts, and half of those users log in every day.  The best part is, they enter information into their profiles to help us make advertisements relevant.  With people spending so much time on these sites, it seems like a great place to expose the masses to products and services.  As long as it stays as minimally invasive as possible, we have a real opportunity to reach our audience in a cost-friendly and effective way.  I guess the new question is, “Can you imagine your life without Facebook?”