I have a big announcement, and I wanted you, my blog readers, to be the first to know. I’m launching a new business!

(Don’t worry, Steigman Communications–and Independent Thinking–aren’t going anywhere.)

Social Biz Smarts is all about leveraging “social” more effectively throughout your company. Turning your business into a social business. It’s a consultancy to educate companies and to help navigate the transition from social brand to social business. There’s a blog too.

This venture’s a little different for me because I’m not starting out solo. Instead, I’m partnering with Beth Schillaci of VillageWorks Communications to bring our collective expertise to the table. We’ve been hard at work behind the scenes the last few months strategizing, mapping out our business plan, and developing the model for Social Biz Smarts.

We’ll be busy in the next few months too. In addition to looking for new clients (please holler if you need help or can refer us to anyone else), we have a couple of Webinars in the works. And we’ll be rolling out new tools and additional business offerings, so stay tuned.

Finally, because Independent Thinking is all about business, I’ll be sharing some of my lessons learned from building this new business. Because the best businesses are always learning, right?

Photo by Patrick Hoesly (Flickr).