Social Media isn’t just for the casual user anymore. As you walk around the city of Louisville (or any city for that matter) you’ll be hard pressed to find advertisements and billboards that don’t say somewhere on them “Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.”

If you are a business, small or large, and you aren’t using social media to promote your business you are light years behind all of your competitors. Visit The Comfy Cow or Sweet CeCe’s Facebook pages and read about customers’ favorite treats and flavors and stay up-to-date on any events or promotions going on at their various locations.

If you follow @LouisvilleBats on Twitter, you’ll get play-by-play updates of games as well as news and promotional information from your favorite minor league baseball team. Many social media users love to follow their favorite local radio stations, news channels, and publications. There truly is no other media outlet that can provide information and content faster than and to as many people as social media.

Want more? Go to Tumblr.com and type “Louisville” in the tag search bar and an infinite list of user’s content including photos, videos, links and comments related to the city will fill your screen.

Oh, that’s still not enough social interaction for you? If you take a look around, with just a little bit of astute observation you’ll notice little square-shaped barcode looking things everywhere you go. They might be on a receipt, business card, poster, or if you’re on Bardstown Rd., a billboard. These are called QR codes. With a simple barcode scanning app on your smartphone, you can snap the QR code with your camera and instantly be redirected to – you guessed it – more content.

The social madness doesn’t end there! Using a little thing called Foursquare can allow social-savvy folks to “check-in” to their favorite restaurants and venues and leave tips for other users or claim discounts on their purchases. You can completely skip the “checking-in” mess and use sites like livingsocial.com or groupon.com and take advantage of local deals in your city.

It’s a lot, I know. Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with continuing to just use your Facebook to post family pictures and stalk your friends or using your Twitter to tweet about your latest complaint. However, the social media monster will continue to evolve and devour all of your favorite businesses, closest friends and beloved family.

It just wouldn’t be an article about social media if I didn’t tell you that you can follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook and friend us on Foursquare. Also catch up with some of our advertisers like the Louisville Bats, Check’s Café and The Bard’s Town. Go ahead do what all the cool people are doing, get social.