What all does “social media” include, and how should we take advantage of it?
“Social media” seems a dauntingly broad term. How would you define it, and what specific parts of it would you advise businesses to take advantage of?

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Jay’s Answer: Social media is distinct from traditional media. Traditional media involves TV, radio, magazines, and newspapers. The cost to produce traditional media is high: experts are required to both produce the content and to disseminate it. Social media involves such things as blogs, forums, wikis, videos, email, etc.

Traditional media is generally perceived as authoritative. The perception arises from two reasons: cost and format. Since it’s expensive to produce, it’s assumed that only experts are commentators and the expertise isn’t easily questioned.

Social media allows anyone to say anything to anyone who’s listening. And that’s the rub with social media – everyone is on equal footing. Google CEO Erick Schmidt once stated that the average blog has one reader – the blogger. Therefore, trying to get your voice heard is like screaming into the digital wind – no one can hear you (unless you’re perceived of as a pundit).

The key to social media success is to go where your target market is already and become a frequent contributor to the conversation. If done well, people will start asking, “Who is this person?” and investigate you. That’s why you want to have your website, LinkedIn profile, etc. all in place – for when people are looking at you. Then, have a plan in place to capture their contact information (or provide a way for them to subscribe to your social media output, such as an RSS feed) so you can leverage your public contributions into a more private conversation (where you’re perceived us as the authority, and not just another contributor).