Social Media Tools for Business

Social media shouldn't be a scary topic for people to engage their audience online, but for many it is. Most people don't know where to start or what tools are best suited for their situation. The real secret is to not utilize many social media devices in a mediocre way.

Instead concentrate on just a few, that you know you can do really really well with. People can sniff average organizations trying to add pizazz to their product through social media. Being real and authentic to your customers in how you communicate to them is the best way to engage people online.

1. Big Business (Aka "The Enterprise")

Corporate blog, blog aggregation, social bookmarking, social networking, internal wiki, Facebook applications

2. Small to Medium Sized Business

Company or personal blog, Facebook/Myspace, Video Sharing (Youtube), Flickr, Social tagging/bookmarking

3. Self Employed and Consultants

Personal blog, LinkedIn, Flickr, Social tagging/bookmarking

It should also be noted that social media tools really work best when the organizational culture and structure embrace this type of new marketing. That is, do not use social media because everyone else is doing it, use social media because your organizational culture believes in such tools.

I'll blog in another post exactly how each of these tools can specifically help you.