For many businesses, social media can seem to be this mysterious black box that they don't really understand.  But a recent conversation with my friend Tim Jackson reminded me that social media really isn't as mysterious as many companies think.

Tim is the Brand Manager for the Masi bicycle brand.  When he was hired 4 years ago, he found himself in a situation that many small business owners can relate to.  He wanted to build awareness online for the Masi brand, but had almost no marketing budget, and his 1-man team included himself. 

But in 2005 he read an article about the potential of blogging for businesses, and it stressed that it could impact the biking industry.  That was all Tim needed to hear, and that night he started his MasiGuy blog.  Since that day, his blog's readership has gone from zero to up to 1,100 readers a day, and since being hired by Masi, the brand's sales have increased by almost 400%.

No doubt Tim's success in using social media to build awareness for Masi is a big contributor to the brand's impressive growth.  But in reality, social media is another extension of his strategy of spending as much time connecting with people as possible.  Tim is a people person, and when he's not blogging or on social sites, he's meeting customers and dealers at stores or trade shows.  Social media allows him to do what he was already doing, but much more effectively. 

And this is the key to understanding social media.  These are just tools that allow you to connect to people.  You can do the same thing with email, or a phone, or face-to-face.  There's nothing magical about social media and it's not a silver bullet that will knock out all your business' problems. 

But if you are like Tim, someone that enjoys connecting with people, then social media can be a powerful tool for you to build your brand.  As always, don't focus on the tools, focus on the connections that the tools help facilitate.