Jumping on Twitter this morning I was bombarded by numerous updates about the continued love fest for Twitter (for which I’m certainly a part of) including – Adam Lavrusik of Mashable’s, “5 Reasons Why Twitter’s Growth Cannot Be Stopped”  and Erick Schonfeld of Tech Crunch’s, “Twitter Reaches 44.5 Million People Worldwide in June.”

All this love for Twitter and social media in general reminded me to make a point that I had been meaning to blog about for some time -

“Social Media (including Twitter) and the relationships we develop, massage and foster online are only as good as those we can convert offline.”

What I’m ultimately getting at is that we can get all hung up on the love around Twitter and social media – including these very impressive stats – but unless (as business professionals) we can take these relationships offline (where business really happens) this is all worthless.

I know this is a pretty broad blanket statement, but in general I think we need to realize that Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogging, etc. are additional communications vehicles to help us more effectively do whatever it is that we do in our careers.

I’m stoked that Twitter had more than 44.5 million unique visitors in June. It’s shocking and reassuring to see all of the stats around this space we all love (here is a great presentation on that). But none of this really matters if businesses don’t understand how to leverage their social media strategy and initiatives to help accomplish their business goals (shocking…I know). Yet the overwhelming majority of businesses I’ve talked with on this subject don’t have a formal strategy in place.

I’ll get off my soapbox as I’d love to hear more from you about your feelings about where social media is heading for business. Of course, I’ll continue to advocate:).