Social Media is currently playing a vital role in these slow economic times.  It is the most cost effective manner in which to market your company – get talked about – but only if it is done right.   Having everyone look into your life, be invited behind the scenes of your company, read your take on the world in your blog are only good things if it presents you in a positive light.  Social media gives your potential clients the opportunity to learn everything there is about you before they even meet you – if you aren’t careful you could give the wrong impression.

This is where PR actually provides an edge. PR takes the time to develop strategy for a social media plan, as well as the content that drives it.  When working with traditional media, a public relations plan analyzes what a company’s awareness and branding goals are, which avenues are the best to take to achieve the goals, how to measure the achievement of the goals, and then where to go next.  The social media plan really shouldn’t be any different.

After all the planning is done, the action steps and the content creation come next.  When a person is speaking on behalf of a company via chats on a social network site or blogs about certain market relevant topics – they need to speak carefully.  It seems that missteps, poorly chosen words, and bad reviews travel faster via social networks than one could ever imagine.

According to an article that appeared in the San Francisco Business Times, there are approximately three million users posting over one million messages a day. That is a lot of social networking taking place.

However, one may wonder how a site that doesn’t charge for their services or post advertisements will turn a profit. The same November 14th article stated that the founders of the company, Biz Stone, Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams, aren’t really that concerned and know that the money will come if you are providing something that the people want. With that being said, the Twitter triumvirate does have some revenue generating models that will take effect in the early part of 2009.

I personally use Twitter and have found that I surround myself with two types of twitterati. The first being people that I find humorous as their twitters tend to be humorous as well, which provides for a nice break in the day. The other type is the group of people that I consider an experts in various areas. This type provides me with little snippets of information that I can use in my line of work, as well as let me know about breaking news in my other areas of interest.

Both types of twitterati are invaluable to me and that is why I would have to agree with Mr. Tim O’Reilly’s statement in the Business Times article … “The heart of the revolution in social networking is going on at Twitter.”

Gone are the days of closed communication and here are the days of wikis, blogs, podcasts, tweets, FaceBook and Flickr – completely open and completely personal. Social media is how the world is communicating with each other; and if companies aren’t willing to play they are going to find themselves falling behind their competition.

Social commerce, the use of social media in business, is putting companies on an even playing field; and that is why major corporations, like Austin-based Dell and AMD, are adding social networking feature to their sites daily

In an effort to get companies in the game, Austin’s social media experts have come together to create Interactive Austin 2008: Putting Social Commerce to Work. The conference, which takes place on Thursday, January 19th, is dedicated to educating companies on the advantages of Social Commerce, its importance in the rapidly changing corporate environment, and how to harness its power for increased profitability.

Interactive Austin 2008 will feature two prominent keynote speakers. Pete Hayes, the Vice President of Corporate Marketing & Communications for AMD, will speak on “Get into the Click Stream: An Alternative to Driving Traffic to Your Site.” While the Co-Founder and Chief Development Officer of nGenera Corporation, Brian Magierski, will speak on “Social Commerce and It’s Impact on Business.” Aside from the keynote speakers, this will be a day full of educational and informative panel discussions and case study presentations from Austin’s social media experts.

If you are in business, you need to attend Interactive Austin 2008 so you don’t get left behind. Get in the game and register at http://www.interactiveaustin2008.com.

The Accolades team will see you there!