Social Media is everywhere.

It's what your customers are doing when they're not on your website. Actually do they even find out about you from your website anymore?

If your audience isn't on Facebook, they're probably on Bebo and/or MySpace (even just to connect with friends or relatives in other cities). Maybe they've adopted the business equivalent and joined the LinkedIn crowd. Perhaps they're blogging somewhere, probably they are at least reading blogs and having them delivered to them daily via their choice of reader/feed. They might be twittering, or following others on Twitter just to see what's going down. Maybe they're simply voicing their opinions by commenting on blogs, news stories and discussion boards, or using Flickr as a way to share their holiday snaps with others.

Social media is the community talking and sharing with each other. So, where (if anywhere) does your brand fit in that conversation?

The answer is going to be unique to your brand.  Everywhere is not for everyone. Here are my guiding principles to help you navigate your way to a decision that's right for you:

1. Authenticity.

Be where your brand truly belongs. You know how awkward you look and feel at a party full of people with whom you have no affinity. Social media is the same, you will be obvious if you don't belong.

Whatever you do, stay true to your brand voice.  If your brand is sophisticated and refined, don't start looking or sounding like a rapper (obviously). There are many examples out there of brands being too try-hard in social networks and simply not representing themselves with authenticity in a desperate attempt to appear cool. Your audience will see through this quicker than it took for Kanye West to be cast on the outer after his unfortunate interruption of Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Awards. It was the wrong way for him to express his opinion, he barged in on someone else's conversation. A brand barging in on a community conversation can have the same effect. 

So, as well as being authentic to your brand, you also need to be authentic to the medium you're in. What you say on Facebook is going to be different to what you say on LinkedIn. 

2.  Know who's out there.

Before you begin, do some research as to who is using what. Understand for example that the age group in Bebo is typically younger (early to late teens) than those doing the same things on Facebook.

3.  Be there yourself.

Set up a Facebook profile, try it out. (You might be surprised at how much you learn about people you know) Experiment a bit and join some fan clubs or causes, try the applications out and see for yourself how other brands are doing it.

Click Suite friend Luke Dallow from the Sale St bar in Auckland (disclaimer we did NOT make his ah-hem website) has 2,800 fans on his facebook page. That's almost enough people to fill his bar twice over. He's using it to promote who's performing, running competitions ("Who's got the best joke?") giving out prizes and making special offers to his "friends". The point is, he has gone where his audience is, he's not waiting for them to come to his website.

4. Add value.

Social media is about contributing - this is one place where you really do need to give (genuinely) before you will receive. Share your knowledge: educate and empower your audience. For example, @searchingnz is a recruitment consultant who sends a series of tweets on Twitter that would be very useful tips for job seekers: what to say (and not say) on your c/v; questions to be prepared for in a job interview; etc. That sharing of information means he will get a following. When he has a job vacancy to talk about, he can genuinely share that vacancy with a following who he knows, by definition, will be seeking a job.

5. Go on - just do it!

I admit that some of these sites are not the easiest to get your head around as a first-timer. You'll be forgiven for arriving at Twitter and wondering what on earth all the fuss is about. Persist. Join Twitter, listen for a bit (follow me), get a feel for how it works then do it - send a tweet. Even if you decide it isn't for you, for the sake of your literacy on these popular mediums, try it out so you at least know about it and can make an informed decision.

When we created The Hybridiser for the Auckland Museum's Wonderland: The Mystery of the Orchid exhibition recently, it was set up so the unique orchid you made could then be e-mailed out to yourself or a friend. When you received it, on that web page (shown below) were links back to the exhibition (obviously) and to allow the recipient to add it to their Facebook page, to tweet it, to put it in their Flickr stream, etc. A lovely (and successful) way to spread the word of the exhibition.

6. Know why you're doing it.

Set some guidelines and objectives for your social media participation. Know what you tweet about and why, and know too what it is that you don't cover. This will help you stay on brand. Objectives will help you stay on track and get you reviewing your performance. Is all that blogging achieving anything?

7. Test, watch, listen, learn, and adjust.

The beauty of it is, you can try things out and change with the technology, the audience and as your own skills grow.

We blogged "off-line" for several months, here at Click Suite so we could assess what we were like at it, and see if we could sustain it. It was a great way to test ourselves before we set ourselves loose on the world wide web. Now we monitor what's viewed (even very old postings still get good traffic if they're interesting), all the comments, and feedback. From that, we learn. The traffic we now get to the blog is awesome - showing it is well worth the effort. 

8. Don't ignore it.

This is probably the most important one. I do hear business people talking about all this and saying things like "I don't have the time" "it's not for me" etc.  I think what they really mean is they don't understand it, it's unfamiliar and the idea of navigating a whole new area is simply exhausting. The reality is that 23 million people visit Twitter each month - are your customers among them? 

Even if the right decision for your brand is not to create a Facebook or iPhone application, to blog or tweet, or perhaps even to have a website (not as crazy as it sounds), I ask you to take the time to survey the scene, understand it and make your decision with your eyes and mind open. Then, review that decision every so often. This is a fast moving world, you can't afford to ignore it.

Want to know more? Our strategy team would be happy to work with you to help you decide what's the right approach for you.  Contact me, via old-fashioned e-mail, if you like.