Before you start promoting yourself or your company via social media there’s a lot that you really need to know. It’s not as clear cut as some people might lead you to believe; that being said, it’s not rocket surgery (see what I did there?) either.

Without further ado, here are some thing that you need to know about social media before you start promoting yourself using Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc.

It’s not as easy as you might think. It requires a lot more effort than just signing up for an account and making the occasional post or Tweet. Social media isn’t like the old standard of creating an ad for television or print and letting the ad do the work. You must constantly be engaging your followers and users and promoting interaction.

That being said, social media isn’t complicated. Yeah, yeah, hold the phone, I just said that it wasn’t easy so why isn’t it complicated? It’s hard work and you need to be on top of things but it’s not overly complicated at all. The underlying principles of social media are pretty simple; sharing, communication, relevance, being helpful, engaging. The major failures out there have come from people’s or company’s inability to share, communicate, be relevant, be helpful and engage their members or followers.

Things can and will go wrong. You can’t forget that things posted on the internet are visible by anyone and everyone. Social media can and will hurt companies. Does everyone remember the infamous Dominos employees in the United States that taped themselves picking their noses and putting it in pizzas? They posted that on YouTube and it immediately hurt Dominos. How about fellow East Coaster Dave Carroll? Dave spent months trying to get United Airlines to fix a guitar that they had broken, when they refused he posted a video on YouTube about the incident (here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo&feature=fvst. Almost immediately United Airlines felt the hit and their stock dropped nearly 20% to the tune of somewhere near $18 million. All that because they didn’t want to replace a $1,500 guitar that they broke. Of course these are all examples of the public using social media to show how the companies had wronged them. Companies should be using social media as a barometer for consumer opinion and acknowledge concerns and try to remedy issues as soon as possible. Use social media as a way to monitor current chatter about yourself or your business. Radian6 a Fredericton based company has made a name for themselves doing just that.

In spite of some of the ads floating around Twitter and Facebook at the moment, social media is not a get rich quick scheme. Doing anything type of marketing via social media requires a lot of time and effort on your part. Personally I’ve been actively networking for about a year now and only now am I starting to really communicate with more people in my field and start to get my name out there – although my name usually incites a “who?” but I digress. Building relationships with others and users takes time and commitment on your end. With millions of people promoting themselves on social media and you need to stand out. It’s all about the quality of your relationships and posts over the quantity of followers and friends. Simply because you have thousands of friends or followers doesn’t mean that you’re doing things correctly. Are they really your target market? Did you start following them or did they start following you? These are all questions that you need to ask yourself.

Can anyone do social media? In short, no. Not everyone is willing to put themselves out there and engage users as much as they should be. Some people just don’t like sharing like others do. Organizations and businesses are often uneasy about the lack of control that social media gives them. The risk of making a very public mistake and having that mistake broadcast world wide in the blink of an eye is something that everyone must be aware of. The other day Scott Stratten from UnMarketing made a great Tweet about posting on Twitter but it applies to all social media. He said “Don’t tweet anything you wouldn’t want to see on a billboard with your name/face/logo/phone # and your mom driving by.” Sure, not everyone can commit to having a presence on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Delicious, Digg, LinkedIn and others all at once. Try focusing on one or two or if you’re a business, delegate different sites to different people.