This can either be a great tool for companies or a complete waste of time and energy.  I’ve been using social media for years and I know what fits for my company and what doesn’t.  I’ve spent time thinking strategically about how I can leverage components of it and what not to use it for, too.

First order of business? Get on Facebook.  It may seem daunting at first, but you’ll figure it out, trust me!  If you don’t figure it out, it’ll figure itself out for you.  Just don’t get sucked into all the stupid stuff with it.  Put your business profile on Facebook and people will start finding you and linking to you, and all of a sudden you’ll realize that people are learning more about what you do and remembering more about what you do because of this social networking tool.  Don’t bother wasting time with all the silly stuff meant for teenagers – think of Facebook as a resume, except an interactive, colorful one. Ensure it shows the best side of you, but more importantly, the real you.  Start focusing your time on adding all the friends and business associates you know.  If you start with that, and reading the messages people put up, you’ll get the hang out of it.  If it makes sense for your company (it doesn’t for most) then get someone in marketing or sales to set up and manage a “Fan Page” for your company.

LinkedIn is the same thing as an online resume.  Get on there, too!  It’s the new way that people are networking.  I’ve been on LinkedIn for close to 10 years now.  People aren’t going to Board of Trade events to meet each other anymore.  They are way over that.  It’s a waste of time.  I don’t have time to go down to a Board of Trade, pay for parking, walk in, talk to bunch of suits, come back out and realize I’ve got all these business cards to type up.  Eeeeew!  The new economy doesn’t work that way.  You’ll meet a lot more people using the technology that’s out there online, and free.  You won’t build the one-on-one relationships using Facebook and LinkedIn but you will identify potentially useful connections faster, and set-up time to interact outside of LinkedIn. Set up your entire profile so that others can find you easily.  When you or your team are hiring people check out their profiles on both Facebook and LinkedIn, too.  You’ll learn a lot about them.

I’ve been using Twitter since early 2008, and rank in the top 2,500 people in the world to follow.  Follow @cameronherold and you’ll learn a ton about how to use the site for marketing and customer service.  And there are even tools now that allow you to use Twitter in private spaces, one of which is called “Yammer.” Set up Yammer and you can “tweet” inside your own company privately and have the same interaction you would on Twitter—just within your own parameters.

I’ve started using Twitter as my note-taking tool while at conferences.  It allows me to multi task: I share with the people following me while reminding myself of the important points in a presentation. I type each idea or thought from a conference into Twitter.  And at the end of the day, I simply copy and paste all of my tweets into a Word Doc.

Jump in.  It’s easier than you think.

Twitter has become an invaluable PR tool for all business owners. It has been one of the greatest online tools where we can get a good quality yet free PR. It is very easy to use and is really effective in reaching out to your target market.

Last week one of my friends and former co-workers Andrea Baxter and now Founder of Bratface marketing and I were talking about Twitter.  We agreed that a list of Twitter resources always seems elusive for companies.  So here it is…

Before you get all the Twitter tools though – make sure you are following her on Twitter (@andreabaxter) she has some great marketing info you’ll want to have and share.

Now – lets put these to the test…

The Basics
1.  www.twitter.com – you sign up for the account here (but who isn’t on Twitter yet?).
2.  www.twitter.com/cameronherold – follow me here if you’d like – highly recommended
3.  http://twitter.grader.com/ – great place to see where you rank, to find others to follow etc. – Add some from the Twitter elite who interest you such as your favourite brands, influencers, newsworthy publications, politicians etc.  You can also search terms here and add people who rank highly on those terms as well.
4.  http://socialtoo.com/ – you can use this site to automatically follow people who follow you (this is the fastest way to start adding followers) but it’s not for everyone. If you choose to keep your follow list low, then this is not the app for you, but why wouldn’t you?

Searching & Tracking Stuff On Twitter
1.  http://search.twitter.com/ – you can use this to see what’s happening on Twitter – think Google for Tweets (messages people send out).
2.  http://www.twitscoop.com/ – another great way to see what’s buzzing on Twitter.
3.  http://www.twhirl.org/ – a good desktop client for Twitter – personally I use TweetDeck. Hootsuite is also great.
4.  http://www.twitterhawk.com/ – a great way to search for keywords – and send replies to people – i.e. those talking about your company or product. Great tracking & marketing tool!
5.  http://www.twibs.com/ – this is where you register your company – so people can find you if your twitter name is your personal name, you can also find companies to follow here too.
6.  http://live.tweetmeme.com/ – one of my recent favs where you can see what’s hot on Twitter (think Digg for Twitter).

Advanced Stuff
1.  http://www.twitpic.com – you can upload photos to Twitter from here – great way to share your story…in images to add something extra to your tweets.
2.  http://tweetstats.com - for the advanced tweet-a-holic and if you really start getting into it, you can see tons of stats.
3.  http://tweetmic.com/ – how to upload an audio tweet. Use this to upload radio interviews and podcasts you are on. Get my PR DVD to learn how to land Free Press.
4.  http://www.adjix.com/WebObjects/Adjix.woa/ and www.tinyurl.com are both great ways to automatically a) shorten URLS and b) send them out as tweets. A MUST have tool to fit into the 140 character count. You should also have these features available on your desktop application (Hootsuite, Seesmic Desktop and TweetDeck).
5.  http://retweetist.com/users – see if people are re-tweeting your stuff – if you don’t have the reply feature on your desktop app, this is a great tool to use.
6.  http://twittercounter.com – basic stats

PR People on Twitter
1.  http://muckrack.com/ – journalists on Twitter if you’re a bit of a media junkie.
2.  http://www.mediaontwitter.com/
3.  https://twitteringjournalists.pbworks.com/Media+People+Using+Twitter

Put these in action and leave comments here of others I should add to the list or try out too.