Valerie Maltoni, of Conversation Agent, posed this great question on LinkedIn Answers about a month ago.  I thought you, my readers, might like to be in on this conversation.   Go to Valerie’s LinkedIn Answers question for the original content or the Conversation Agent blog post where she distills it all.

After you read this, then weigh in with your thoughts.  Are you or your company feeling the pressure to be present online in a more “social” way?  Will you outsource all or some of the project?  If you are in PR, what are your thoughts about offering this as a service?  Will you become the voice of a company if they ask you to?

Burson-Marsteller recently released the results of a survey they conducted to determine where companies engage the most using social media tools.  The study indicates that 79 percent of the largest 100 companies in the Fortune Global 500 index are using at least one of the most popular social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or corporate blogs.

It’s interesting to find that companies are not just posting and tweeting randomly.   Real conversations are going on.  

For an evidence-based approach to social media, the reports suggest the following 9 tips:

1.  Monitor your own, and your competitors, social media presence.

2.  Get top management “buy-in”. 

3.  Develop a social media strategy.

4.  Define and publish a social media policy.

5.  Develop internal structure.

6.  Contribute to the community.

7.  Participate in good times and in bad.

8.  Be perpared to respond in real time.

9.  Beyond monitoring, measure the impact of social media engagement.

You don’t have to be a big company to harness the power of social media engagement.  The rules are the same for any size business.  In fact, social media has leveled the playing field in such a way that a small company or individual can have the same kind of reach as a bigger company by using social media tools.   But you do have to follow the rules.  If you are the top management then you must agree with yourself that you will be committed to using the social media tools you select.  Do publish your social media policy even if you are the only one who will see it at first.  This will give you a guide to help you remember what you said you would do.  Don’t think that just because your business is local that you don’t have competitors.  You do.  Social media tools provide a great way of finding out what they are doing.

So, what is your social media tool of choice?  How is your engagement through that channel improving your business outcomes?  Have you performed a social media checkup lately?

Joseph Jaffee, over at crayon, has a lot to say about social media.  Listen in as he talks about Jet Blue’s big news.  They just went over a million followers!!  Why should you care?

First, following and being follwed is the object of the game with social media.  Isn’t this the same thing that one wants to happen when the press release goes out or when the TV commercial airs? 

Second, no business is too small to benefit from the energy that comes from having a social media campaign that actually helps them acquire and keeep customers.

Finally, Joesph is honest in his assessment that we don’t know if one million is the magic bullet especially in light of the fact that they only follow back about one hundred thousand.  As Joesph points out, Jet Blue could be making lots of mistakes but if other companies are holding back because they don’t want to make mistakes then that’s a mistake.

Listen to the podcast to hear 5 reasons to use Twitter no matter the size of your company or brand.    Jet Blue Has 1MM Followers On Twitter And You Don’t

In a world where the traditional has been turned upside down, Public Relations is not exempt.  All Paul Revere had to do was ride his horse through the town shouting but these days who uses horses any more!   A good relationship with reporters can be important but it is not the end of the discussion.  It seems as if social media does a much better and faster job of sharing information and building word of mouth than traditional newspaper, magazine or even TV or Radio.

Of course, these modes of communication are not dead but if they are to survive and be a viable way to create public awareness for business, social media will have to embraced and respected for what it brings to a PR campaign.

I found a great video from Web Marketing Toady that gives some advice on how local businesses can increase their presence by using social media tools for their PR efforts. 

How Local PR Can Increase Traffic To Your Site – Lorrie Thomas

Here’s the DQ: 

What has your business done to increase traffic either to your website or to your physical location by combining PR and social media tools?  What do you want to understand how to do better in this area?