Sifting through my email this morning I read my regular blogs including Chris Brogan’s. I was fortunate enough to see that Run Level Media captured a recent talk he gave at New Media Atlanta last week. I’ve been fortunate enough to see Chris talk a few different times on the topic of social media, but this one seemed a whole lot different (see video below).

Throughout the talk, Chris hits on several points that I believe are so relevant for businesses participating or looking to participate in social media. After hearing Chris talk I was inspired to put together the Top  3 Ways Businesses Must Embrace Social Media:

1 – Listen & Learn: How often do we forget as marketers that our organization’s biggest fans aren’t fans because of the product, service, upgrade, enhancement or features that we offer & often promote through our various communications platforms. The reason your organization has fans, advocates and perhaps even a growing Tribe is because you make them feel special. I believe part of triggering such feelings and emotions with your audiences are to spend some time on these various social media platforms listening & learning.

2 – Solve a problem: Once we have observed our audiences through listening and learning about their problems, we must do whatever we can to begin answering these questions, solving their problem or referring them to others who can. This act is so incredibly humbling and selfless and should be done in a way that may not immediately feel so comfortable…but in its essence is so incredibly natural.

3 – Give others a voice: You can be a large Fortune 100 company or a small business with very few customers and perhaps no other employees. Regardless, your end result across all of these social media platforms should be to empower and educate others to be the voice of your organization. You should view social media as your organization’s opportunity to create a tribe, army, nation of individuals that will do one of your hardest jobs for you – promote the value of your organization to others.

I’ve been blessed over the past two years of diving in head first into social media. I’ve learned so much from folks like Allan Schoenberg, Kelly Olexa, Sarah Evans, Chris Brogan, Arik Hanson, David Mullen, and literally hundreds of others. If for nothing else, I hope that you can add to this list in your comments below and pass along to others that might add to these “best practices” and/or perhaps learn from them.

Thank you & have a wonderful day!