Social media is slowly changing the face of how businesses get, respond, and discover new information. Those that do not adapt will simply die, but the ones that embrace social media, will undoubtedly succeed and be seen as leaders in that field of business.

Courtesy of @Mashable, here are four ways that social media is altering businesses:

1. From “Trying to Sell” to “Making Connections”

Show some personality, that is part of your brand. Engage with your customers by telling them what’s going on when the 9-5 job ends. If you’re transparent and “put yourself out there,” people feel more comfortable about doing business with those companies.

2. From”Large Campaigns” to “Small Acts”

Less is more.

Less is more. It bears repeating. The cliché of the decade, but it couldn’t be more true, especially when opting to use social media in your business plan. Focus on the niche mediums that your target audience utilizes. This allows you to better connect and track them; you won’t be wasting millions of dollars blasting your message to world, not knowing who saw it and if they responded to your call-to-action.
People share stories through the web. It is much faster. So if your customer has a negative experience, you need to make sure you address their concerns before it becomes too viral. It pays for companies to pay attention to the one-on-one customer relationships forged via social media.

3. From “Controlling our Image” to “Being Ourselves”

This reinforces rule #1 — personality. Don’t control your employees so that your company is portrayed as this squeaky-clean, monotonous factory. Allow your employees to write and talk about hobbies that they’re passionate about outside of work.
Take a page from Google’s 70/20/10 rule, which allows employees to spend 20% of their time on “Innovation time off” pursuing their own ideas that relate to Google and then 10% of their time on stuff completely unrelated to Google. “By doing this, Google gains a loyal employee by allowing them to do whatever they want without Big Brother looking over their shoulder.  At the same time, it captures innovative thinking due to random stimulation.” (the99percent)

4. From “Hard to Reach” to “Available Everywhere”

People want to interact with and engage businesses via their chosen means of communication, whether that is Twitter, Facebook, discussion forums, etc. Company telephone numbers and e-mail addresses will not suffice any longer. If I’m loyal to a brand, and I see that they use Twitter or Facebook often, it makes me feel more comfortable knowing I can communicate with their company through those means. Allow customers to communicate through their chosen means, not yours.

Don’t be dinosaur and stick with what you’re comfortable with (i.e. old media). You’ll go extinct like they did. Instead, jump ship to where the future of interactivity is going.