If you are reading this, you are part of the social networking bug. Blog it, Twitter it, Plaxo it or whatever, you and I are part of the new hightech methodology to promote yourself rapidly across continents.

You could imagine Tom Lehrer having a field day with the phenomenom. Who caught it from who, and then passed it on to …well, which best friend!

But there is a problem with all this. You have to be part of the crowd in order to know about the game and then to join in.

Last week, I participated in a meeting at Israel’s Export Institute. About 20 manufacturers and sales teams were brought together in one room. The opening lecturer consisted on the rudimentary elements of social networking. What is blogging? Why invest time in having a place on LinkedIn? etc.

And here was the surprise. Barely half of this sophisticated audience knew what the speaker was talking about, let alone be a part of the internet challenge.

Israel is a country that struggles to obtain and consolidate good marketing channels. Social networking is a great way to break down or even go around the barriers to commercial success.

My initial conclusion is that for the moment much of the buzz of this skill is only reaching the easy-to-be-converted. More of an effort is required to interest the small and traditional businesses. And I would hasten to speculate that this limitation does not only apply to Israel.

So here’s the conumdrum. How do companies, which specialise in social marketing services, reach out to those who are not on the radar screens?