The almost instantaneous dissemination of  information is just part of life these days.  If Justin Bieber has a new hair cut, someone seeing him leaving the salon will inevitably tweet about it.  If Dog the Bounty Hunter is seen running through the streets of Los Angeles, that’s bound to inspire more than a few people to post the note to their Facebook page.

Pop culture may have it’s place on social media platforms, but these types of websites are oftentimes key marketing venues for companies to get the word out about who they are, what they do, and why they’re good at it.

Whereas brick-and-mortar businesses are able to utilize signage to attract eyes, companies that work within a virtual office don’t necessarily have that same luxury. Because of this, places like Facebook and Twitter have become, in some senses, the new “Main Street”.

Recently, @888bailbond landed itself in the top ten of About Bail’s 50 bail professionals to follow.   Rankings were chosen based on the types of messages being tweeted, activity level, and “tweet relevance”.

@888bailbond currently has 309 followers (and growing) and tweets several times per day, with topics ranging from information about bail, jail happenings, legislative changes, DUI checkpoint information and others. Follow us!

(Assumedly, you already know how bail bonds work, so I’ll skip those details.) In order to survive as a bail bondsman, be prepared to be on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Any good bail bondsman or company will tell you, the entire livelihood of the company is generated from the 10% premium of the bail that is written. If you are not willing to take calls on Saturday morning at 3:00am, you probably won’t be in business for very long.

Additionally, doing all the necessary technical steps to becoming a bail bondsman are very straight forward, but becoming a bail expert is not. As a bondsman, you must use judgement and tolerate risk well. A bondsman is personally responsible for the liability of the full amount of every bond written. Although a bondsman is underwritten by an insurance company, as Greg points out in “What Makes A Bail Bond Different” the liability first falls to the bondsman. If you don’t have good judgement, you’ll be bankrupt in no time. Ready to take on hundreds of thousands in liablity?

So, if you don’t mind night owl shifts, birthday, Christmas and Valentine’s Day interruptions (and your friends and family understand this), and you have excellent judgement and a strong backbone for risk, you may be a good candidate to become a California bail bondsman.

Tune in tomorrow for recommended steps and qualifications in becoming a licensed bondsman. Now, I’m off to take my bail pre-licensing class…