Because of its conversational nature, some companies see social media as a channel that doesn’t really apply to them. Or that’s just a fad. Careful.  Brands that take social media lightly may actually cause themselves major brand damage. What follows are five strategic tips to help your brand succeed in an area where it’s all too easy to fail.

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The answer is “yes,” and “no.” It often depends on how you make the dollars you have work their hardest for every piece of virtual space that they occupy.

So what’s a key strategic element for companies new to Web 2.0? One of your main concerns should be to develop a good web presence. As long as you know your business and your audience, setting up the following accounts shouldn’t be too hard. Interacting, however, is more challenging. Whether you’re already on social media or about to get into it, here’s how to get the most attention on two of the most popular social media sites.

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Believe it or not, all media is social. The Dark Knight’s success is measured in dollars, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense pamphlets inspired colonists to gather, and Ayatollah Khomeini smuggled cassettes into Iran in the ‘60s to set the stage for the Iranian Revolution. Yet there’s still a crescendo in recent years of people barking about how online social media is revolutionizing the you-name-it industry. These people are both right and wrong: the Internet changed everything, but it also didn’t make traditional advertising entirely obsolete, as Super Bowl ads are more expensive than ever. What the Internet actually did was give people social media that allows them to simultaneously be alone and part of a community. Today, people are interested in forming connections more than they’re interested in transmitting information. And connections—perhaps more than anything—are based on trust.

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While there are many ways to gain new Facebook fans, I would like to talk about how to lose them.

I lost a fan today.  I am currently building a music project as a hobby. As the popularity of Myspace continues to die, I am forced to find a new social networking outlets to spread the word about my music. Luckily, Facebook offers a near perfect solution. With a Facebook fan page, I am able to suggest all my friends, and they're able to suggest their friends. I can update all my followers whenever I want to, and they can interact back with me.

Everything was going well until I got carried away. I would send out multiple updates a day assuming that everyone was as enthusiastic about my page as I was. As I began to lose followers and friends, I realized that I needed to back it off a bit.

So how does this apply to your business? Well, if your business has a Facebook page (as it should), there is a fine line between informing your audience and annoying your audience. Just like any type of marketing, over saturation is a negative. People aren’t checking Facebook to see what’s going on with your business.   You are, however, lucky enough to have them follow you and receive your updates. If you over do it, your fans will start dropping like flies.

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I have begun my quest to know social networking inside and out.  I want to figure out how to take advantage of this marketing gold mine.  I see a lot of expert suggestions online, and, through some research, I have discovered some useful insights into what companies should be doing on these sites.  I would like to share some of what I have learned:

Facebook:  This seems to be the big daddy.  Practically everyone you know is on it, and they have given information that makes targeting them a piece of cake.  They have divided themselves into groups based on their

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