There's a lot of buzz and hype right now about the need to reach out to potential customers via social media. Blog marketing, social news submission, YouTube videos and social bookmarking are all being promoted by social media marketers are the key to success in this new playing field. While it's true that companies need to learn how to utilize these new marketing channels, it's also important not to overlook one of the fastest, easiest ways to market via social media.

While video watching, blogging and social bookmarking are garnering a lot of attention right now, a new report titled "Social Technographics" put out by Charlene Li at Forrester Research shows that it's actually product reviews that dominate usage when it comes to social media sites.

Take a look at the following chart put together be Li and her associates. It shows the percentage of online consumers that participate in various forms of "social" content each month.

While peer-generated videos (like those on YouTube) and the use of social networking sites (like Linked In and Orkut) make the top five, the top three options are all things that have been around for ages in online time.

It's no surprise that people are reading blogs and having conversations in discussion boards, but I'd imagine that many small businesses might be surprised to find out just how many people still rely on customer reviews and ratings as a way to help them research products and services and make purchasing decisions.

That means that the market is ripe for small businesses to hop onto this social media marketing without necessarily having to learn about a ton of new technologies.

After all, it's not that difficult to point folks to TripAdvisor or Yahoo! Local and ask them to write a review.

So ask yourself this...when was the last time that you checked the popular consumer review sites that might feature your business to make sure that:

1.) You were listed (with the proper information)

and

2.) People are reviewing you

If you haven't done either, then I'd suggest that you make it a priority to find out if anyone is talking about you. If you've visited these sites and found no comments about your product or services, ask yourself what you can do to encourage reviews.

If there are negative reviews, ask yourself how you can open a dialogue with your customers so that you can address the issues and let them know that they've been addressed.

If there are positive reviews, ask yourself how you can leverage them to help convince new customers to do business with you.

Don't overlook consumer reviews simply because they don't sound as cutting edge as social bookmarking or peer-generated video. Remind yourself that sometimes the easiest way to dive into social media marketing is to start with the easiest concepts first.