Social Media is free! FREE... how can you afford to ignore something that costs NOTHING. That is what I keep telling people.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't expect an invoice once I've done the work.
It doesn't really matter how much free software you are using - how many great tools there are for calculating what is working and what isn't. You focus on your strategy and set up your accounts, you follow/join/like/link in the hope that someone, somewhere will reciprocate. You utilise all google products til you dream in alerts, analytics and ads.
You learn the etiquette for the medium, get to grips with Groups on Facebook and strive to "participate in the conversation". You stumbleupon and digg Del.icio.us articles on the best way to achieve a perfect social media presence.
You search, re-search and research your audience. Twitter, google+, facebook, youtube, pinterest, blogs...
Social Media costs time. Once you've spent that time you watch and wait and hope all your time doesn't turn into white noise on the web.
