Is it time to join the party? I’m not a big on jumping on the band wagon for every trend or fad that comes along. I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s, and I never owned a pair of parachute pants or a skateboard. If anything, I tend to be somewhat non-conformist (i.e., I stand at my desk as I type this).

Social Media as a whole is a fad and a trend. I mean, it seems that if you throw “social media” on your business plan you’re golden. It’s sort of like coming up with a way to be Green or just use “sustainability” in your marketing literature and you’re all set.

Not the case. Most social media opportunities are just abusing the “industry” and will be flashes in the pan. But there are two social media outlets that I would recommend for companies:

1. Facebook.com started for college students and later opened up for everyone, Facebook.com is taking over as the social media king. They have created their own eco-system, or subnet of the internet. So it’s not enough to have just a web site, now you have to have a “page” on Facebook for your company. It can seem almost like a scam, except for the fact that it’s free. Here are several things you can do on your page:

-Announce and invite people to important events. Going to a trade show? Indicate such, not only on your web page but also on your Facebook page.
-Communicate with your “fans.” Have your fans interact with you through a discussion board or direct mass emails.
-Crosslink. Become a fan of your industry association, vendors, sports teams and the like.
-Lift up your skirt-a little bit. Show some personality. Facebook allows companies to drop the veneer just a little bit and show some personality.

These are merely suggestions on Facebook. The key is to get out there and get started. Here are some more in depth links on how to tackle the beast:

-View/Join Merge’s Facebook Page
-Tips on promoting a Facebook Page
-Advantages of a Facebook Page

2. Twitter

So we have web sites, blogs, email, IM, podcasts-now Twitter. The king of micro-blogging. Twitter does one thing and asks for one thing only: “What are you doing right now?” Users “tweet” their current status as 140 characters or less.

Why would anyone want to do that and why would your company care?

I admit-Twitter is strangely addictive for an individual. The net result of participating in Twitter is that you meet people you would have never met and you get to know more people on a more personal level (than you may care).

So as a business, why is this for you? From a personal/business owners perspective, (http://twitter.com/adamlandrum) I’ve found out key information about my competitors (so it’s good for spying), I’ve found and met key freelancers and I’ve found potential employees (we’re hiring right now).

But that’s just my “personal” account, that I happen to also use for business purposes.

But Merge has an account as well (http://twitter.com/merge). Although we haven’t been using Twitter as long for Merge, we hope to see the following:

-Attract new prospects by posting notifications (new interesting blog posts, newsletter updates, new client web sites)
-Post mini-press releases
-Notify our followers about events we may be participating in or sponsoring
and
-Attract new talent/employees

In the end, Twitter allows companies to interact directly with those who are interested in them, in a cool, non-evasive way. It’s time to Twitter.

More:
-How to Create a Business Twitter Feed

Summary

Join the conversation of social networking and media. Have fun with it. Be creative and learn how to leverage what it has to offer. And the bottomline is this: You might not have to do it now, but you’re going to have to do it eventually. Why not be one of the first instead of the last?