New businesses find their beginnings in the most unusual places. In the case of Debbie Horovitch, the beginning was found in a job search. After being laid off from an advertising agency in 2008, Debbie used social media as part of her job hunting strategy. She learned the ins and outs of various social media tools as well as their power. In the end, rather than going to work for someone else, she decided to offer her new expertise on a consulting basis.

DH Partners Media Planning [http://www.dhptoronto.com/] manages social media communities. "I have two divisions," explains Debbie. "One for ad agencies and their clients and one for small businesses. Just now, after 18 months, I'm getting to act on the small business component of my business plan."

"Social media has been the most powerful thing in my life in the last few years," say Debbie. "It has allowed me to maintain really strong business relationships with little effort. It makes it easy to find the right people to work with. When I'm connected with a person through social media, I know if it's the right time to approach them with an opportunity."

It seems the time was right for approaching the ad agencies with her services. "I sent packages to a few agency contacts. They really loved what I was doing and that was when I started working for them buying online cost per click ad campaigns."

When buying online ads on behalf of clients, Debbie uses her Business Visa card. "So much in business, in social media, is in the cloud and everything I have to pay for online is on my Visa card -- especially advertising campaigns for clients. I also use it for travel, car rentals and memberships," says Debbie.

Debbie has found that people have two fears about social media: they are concerned about where to get all the content to publish; and, they're worried about having the technical knowledge to set up an account properly. Debbie has developed packages that allow small businesses to work with her on a part time and affordable basis. She acts as a time-share executive in their business. An executive specializing in social media.

"Everyone is at a different place in the process of getting into social media for their business," explains Debbie. "The packages I offer speak to where they are in their business and how to use the new technologies available."