• Listen before you act.
• Get to know your audience well.
• Make sure you know the rules of engagement before you start interacting.
• Then, when you do speak, be candid and transparent.
• Disclose, disclose, disclose.
• Make sure your legal department is on board with all your innovations.
• But most importantly be human, and be receptive to the changes.

These all provide a solid foundation for companies to base their social media marketing efforts on. The single common thread that exists through all these and other guidelines, and will continue to come up time and again, is that corporations need to realize that in social media networking/marketing, there isn’t a corporate voice any more. There are only individual voices now. One can see why corporations are hesitant to jump in.

Traditionally, companies employ a rep/spokesperson/PR person to interface directly with the outside world. These individuals are charged with relaying to the public a consistent message and image about the company and from the company, and their activities are always coordinated with internal functions. From a company’s standpoint, it is important that this is done. Whether publicly or privately held, they have to approach this in a responsible way. There’s too much at stake, too much to lose.

One does not expect corporations to change their ways on a dime. In fact I think, in order to get started with social media marketing, companies should work within their means, but they must make a decision to move forward with it. In addition to the list above, I would add the following important elements to ensure a successful corporate social media marketing effort.

1. Social media marketing should be treated as any other new marketing campaign. It’s not reasonable to assume that social media marketing will replace all other marketing activities, therefore it has to live along side of them, along side the other marketing campaigns. By treating it as a campaign, the marketing team has to define its goals, budget, resources, time frame, etc. just like any other campaign. This way, there will be a much better chance for it to be approved, and it will stands on its own merits as a solid marketing effort, not as a fad that executives should be wary about.
2. Expected costs for the social media campaign should be realistically estimated. One may expect that social media activities only require time from someone on the team to post blogs, read and respond to other blogs, build online presence on different sites, etc. However, in a corporate environment, the marketing team should also budget for education time and team knowledge development, time to educate and coordinated with other decision makers on this thing called social media, and ongoing communication with them on the general direction, strategy and status of the social media marketing effort.
3. A clear corporate communications policy must be created for social media. Even though social media marketing is on an individual level, corporation communications must be aware of who within the company is saying what and on what subject. The goal here is not to control, restrict or influence (unless there are good business reasons to do so), but to be aware, coordinate and support. I’m sure the general counsel will have his/her own views about this as well. The key here is to recognize that social media marketing needs to be understood by the entire corporate team so that a strong internal policy can be written to allow marketing to get on with it. Then make sure all employees are aware of this policy. Social media marketing will force a company to update its corporate culture.

I believe, without at least doing the above, companies, big or small, will set themselves up for failure.

Here are some questions for you:

• Do you agree that social media marketing should be understood by and coordinated with other decision makers in a corporation, and it’s not merely a marketing department endeavor?
• What do you think the real costs are for a corporation to start an effective social media marketing campaign? What are the main considerations?
• I’m still not sure that, as a blanket statement, smaller companies can start social media marketing much easier, faster and more effectively than larger companies. Is this just a myth?