Well, it depends on the question really. As with any other marketing tactic, you won’t know if you’re successful with your social media attempts unless you know what you’re trying to accomplish. We see the huge potential in the use of blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Yelp and beyond for many of our clients, and we also see the challenges for many organizations who want to “do” social media, without really knowing why.

Full disclosure: our Almanac team is learning more and more about social media; we wouldn’t call ourselves experts in the field by a long shot.

Amusing anecdote: As of December of 2009, there were 15,740 “social media experts” on Twitter, with a 3.5x increase per month! Using these figures, we’ll have a projected 30M “experts” by December 2012.

We do know that social media is evolving every day with new applications and new providers and new ways to connect, and we’re committed to experimenting and investigating so that we can be a knowledgeable resource for our clients.

When we work with organizations who have decided to focus some aspect of their marketing and communications on social media, we usually begin by asking them why. Many times we hear things like: “well, my boss said our competitor has a facebook page, so we should too” or “everybody seems to be doing it” or even “well, it’s free, shouldn’t we do it?”. Social media is simply an open, honest dialogue with people interested in your product or service, that can expand your reach and help you meet your goals. Before they jump right in, we recommend that our clients take some time to evaluate how well prepared they are for all that comes with successfully using this tool. A few questions you can ask yourself as you get started:

What do you hope to accomplish through social media?
Evaluate it as you would any other marketing tool—who is your audience, what is your message, what are your goals? Do you want to increase sales, improve loyalty, educate people about your work?

Do you have time to spend on social media?
Dialogue means that it’s a two way street, so you need to be prepared to spend time monitoring and responding to people who have something to say to you. And honest means that it’s not always pretty—people can complain about you as well as praise you in front of everyone. Who will commit to posting, following, and answering requests and comments on a consistent basis, so that followers know they can count on you for updates and information?

What’s your social media voice?
This comes from your organization’s brand. Are you a more formal organization with an air of experience? Are you a newer company with a more informal structure? Do you want to be perceived as experts, learners, serious, witty? How will you ensure that voice is consistent throughout your communications?

What do you have to say?
It all comes down to compelling content and telling stories that people want to hear. You know you have good stories, but you need to be intentional about telling them. We recommend putting together a social media calendar with topics for facebook postings and ideas for tweets and blog posts spaced out with a degree of frequency that you are comfortable with. Remember to be flexible so that you can post about relevant current events and new developments. Content ideas should come from across your organization, not just from the marketing and communications staff. Think through your products, your mission, the people who are involved in your company or organization and the kind of information you have to share in those areas.

And finally, if you are thinking about social media, the best thing to do is educate yourself before you begin any kind of formal program at your company or organization. Read blogs, start following people or organizations you care about on twitter, “like” some organization pages on facebook. Discover the benefits of social media and figure out how you feel about the risks.

Next week we’ll share case studies of organizations who are evolving their use of social media at a pace that’s right for them.