Social media may not be relevant for every business decision, but the ability to harness social at any point in time is a powerful one, says Schaffer.

He will be sharing his expertise with the South African business community in October as the keynote speaker at the ITWeb Social Business Summit, on Thursday, 15 October at Summer Place in Hyde Park.

In a recent interview, he was asked what “the next big thing” in the area of social media would be. Schaffer responds; “The next big thing is now, it’s here, it’s all the social networks, and I think very few companies have leveraged the potential that all these different networks have.”

“So, until you come back to me and say I’ve done everything I can do on LinkedIn, everything I can do on Twitter, on Facebook, with my blog, on YouTube, SlideShare, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, Xing … When you can say you’ve done everything you can, then we’ll talk about the future, but until then there’s a lot of work to do. Roll up your sleeves and get busy,” he says.

His advice to companies is to start with one or two channels, see the ROI, and from there develop other channels. “That’s how you determine the must-have versus nice-to-have.”

Schaffer believes social media will inevitably bring various departments together – if they are already collaborating on a wide range of issues, adding and integrating social is not a problem. For companies that still operate in silos, though, this is a challenging aspect of becoming social, he adds.

Schaffer’s experience in social media is extensive. He has been acknowledged as a Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencer two years running, as well as a Forbes Top 5 Social Sales Influencer.

He has written three books: Maximize Your Social: A One-Stop Guide to Building a Social Media Strategy for Marketing and Business; Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing; and Windmill Networking: Maximizing LinkedIn.

He is also the creator of the social media for business blog, Maximise Social Business. This year, he introduced two new ventures, the Social Media Center of Excellence, to build and educate a community on best practices in using social media for business, and the Social Tools Summit, a biannual live conference to educate businesses on social media tools available to increase efficiencies and ROI.

For more information, visit www.itweb.co.za or register here. Alternatively connect with them on Facebook or on Twitter.