So, you’ve read my post on How to get started with social media or you follow what Chris Brogan, Sarah Perez, Jeremiah Owyang, Brian Solis and others have to say on the topic. You’re interested. Social media looks promising to you, but it also seems like a lot of time spent without measurable return and I’m too old to be taking part.

Am I close? If so, check out the research Universal McCann pulled together on social media in the embedded deck below.

The best part? there are fantastic resources all over the web where you can get all kinds of free advice, research and trend information. Bloggers are doing all the hard work and pulling all of the information together so you can digest in bite-sized chunks.

Brian Solis over at PR 2.0 created a graphic below to assist us all in knowing what service / Web app does what.

Remember, you don’t have to join every conversation and you don’t need a presence on every platform. The key is to start slowly. Pick people and topics to follow and engage in conversations with that most closely map to your area of interest.

Don’