If you haven’t heard it yet, Justin Bieber with his 42.1 million Facebook fans and 20 million Twitter followers will be speaking at St. Andrews School in Boca Raton later today April 13, 2012. There’s also this guy named Obama who spoke at Florida Atlantic University on Tuesday.  Obama has 25.9 million “likes” on Facebook, and 14.1 million followers on Twitter.  By the way, his 69.4 million votes in the 2008 election only barely exceeds Bieber’s following.

What was most interesting to me about this news was the way I found out; which is a clear indication of how much the media has changed in our country. We can all remember where we were when we found out about the monumental news stories of our time. Granted, this is a far cry from monumental news for anyone over the age of twelve; but it was important enough to make the front page of today’s South Florida Sun Sentinel.

So, how did I find out? Was it a TV news story was it on my car radio, was I on the Sun Sentinel web site? No, I was one of the first to know because of a text my 15-year-old daughter received from a friend of a friend who goes to St. Andrews. Between the internet and our mobile devices, we are more connected than ever and that has major implications on how we get our news and even bigger impact on how we sell our products.

To a social media marketer, Justin Bieber represents an opportunity to reach his mass of followers and hopefully their parents as well. Bieber is in town to congratulate three students who raised $51,738 for Pencils of Promise, one of Bieber’s favorite charities. The nonprofit group has built more than 50 schools around the world. You have to give the kid a lot of credit.  With all of the international fame, he seems to be doing things the right way and has kept himself remarkably clean. And his music isn’t nearly as annoying as some of the other stuff out there.

Our tweets on the Obama visit were listed alongside major news organizations and political groups. Our objective is to promote Boca Raton and get the interest of corporate executives who would consider relocating their companies to our community.

It doesn’t matter who you are going to vote for in November, but you can bet that we’re going to do more Blog articles, Tweets and Facebook posts when Obama returns to Boca Raton to face Mitt Romney in the final Presidential debate on October 22 at Lynn University. (see our Blog post from last November)

The Boca Raton business community needs to embrace these opportunities to get our community in the news, with positive stories That is what will help to draw more quality business and jobs to Boca. This will help us to fill our office buildings, make your businesses more successful and improve upon what is already a great quality of life here in town.