I've just been putting the finishing touches into a presentation I'm giving tomorrow on social media for business.

I will précis it for you (it's 45 minutes long!). I think the most important things to remember are:

1. Have a strategy and stick to it - make sure you know what you want to achieve (specifics are important), who you want to reach, where you want to talk to them, how you are going to measure the results
2. After you answer the above, it should be apparent which media to choose - the biggest or most appropriate for business, however, are - LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs and forums. But others like SlideShare, Flikr, Ning, Ping, Ecademy and Plaxo may be relevant.
3. Make sure your messages are consistent with other marketing
4. Listen, monitor, engage, talk, create and respond to conversations - don't just try to sell - follow the 7010 rule on Twitter:- 70% good info and links, 20% retweets, 10% self-promotion
5. Create a linked strategy - write a blog post, tweet about it, link to it on your FB page, update your LinkedIn status about it, etc.
6. Don't expect it to result in immediate sales - guide your followers/connections through a four-step sales process: like me, know me, trust me, (and maybe, one day) pay me
7. Don't forget to measure the results and feed back the info into your strategy/objectives, reassessing them where necessary

OK, so we're done with the theory. What about in practice?

For me:

I've done some FB advertising - lots of clicks (and therefore payments to FB) - but no enquiries yet;

I tweet as much as I can, but I've found it hard to have enough to use this media properly;

I've found LinkedIn to be great - lots of contacts, a couple of expressions of interest from out of the blue, even a few meetings with prospects - but no actual business as yet;

Forums - my favourite - I enjoy the interaction and helping people out with advice. The investment of my time has paid me back with a fair few pieces of work so far.

__________________
Claire Kerr, Marketing Consultant
Kerrmunications
www.kerrmunications.co.uk
My about.me page has all my social media links: @about.me/ClaireKerr