There are many reasons to use social media to promote your company, from which you gain just as many benefits. Here are my top five:

• Build awareness of your brand.
• Enhance your reputation.
• Convert prospects into customers and clients.
• Create loyalty in your customers.
• Increase the morale of your employees.

So that’s what you get, the benefits. How do you get it?

• Through a Facebook fan page for a celebrity, band, or business.
• Through a Twitter account for your business.
• Through LinkedIn pages for key employees (executives, managers, employees, whoever best represents your company).
• Through a blog with one or more authors (or multiple blogs) on your web site.

Those are the tools. But they are only tools; you must know how to use them to enjoy the five benefits.

So you must have a plan, well thought out; with goals, strategies, and tactics. You must know where you are going and how you are going to get there; otherwise, how will you know you are on the right road? How will you even know when you get there, whatever your destination (your goal) might be? So a plan is a necessity. As is the skill to use these social media tools.

It doesn’t hurt to write guidelines for participation. Actually, guidelines are a necessity, for companies of any size, even for one-person companies. Why? Guidelines allow you to consider the rules for playing. They set a clear path of engagement.

All of this takes some thoughtful consideration, some time to gestate ideas, some time to adjust as you go. And a commitment for the long term.

See. That’s all it takes! Nothing to it, right?

–Rich Maggiani