We know by now that this social media thing is more than just having a Facebook page and Twitter address, right? If your answer is no, read on. If your answer is yes, skip below and read some of my other posts lest I insult your intelligence.

10 Step Social Media Strategy for Small Business

1. LISTEN Set up some simple, free listening tools to find out what people are saying about your company and your industry. Google Alerts is a very simple module. Set up a few different ones for your business name and your competitors so you can see what they are up. Next, setup a Twitter-specific tool such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to follow any references to your company and industry-specific keywords. (NOTE: I think Tweetdeck has some mobile interface aspects that are superior, but Hootsuite’s analytics and ability to create custom reports wins in the end for me) Identify the most common keywords for your business and industry, and setup a few saved feeds for these terms (examples: “organic skincare” “cloud-based CMS” “affordable web design”).
2. ANALYZE Review this information regularly and start to make notes on trends, strongest keywords, thought leaders, and potential weaknesses.
3. IDENTIFY Start to focus on those thought leaders who are the obvious influencers in your industry. These people are very important for a number of reasons: thought leaders with a lot of followers could have a major impact if they reference your company, some may already be brand evangelists who you can now use to further endorse your products, others may just be smart industry connections and potential future partners.
4. BRAINSTORM Start to formulate ideas for potential inbound efforts: blog/content development, video, potential partnerships with key influencers, special offers, and potential web restructuring with calls-to-action and interest-specific landing pages.
5. SET GOALS What does success mean to you? Brand awareness? Sales lead generation? Increased bottom-line for e-commerce? Define benchmarks for what a reasonable ROI is for your organization.
6. STRATEGIZE Develop a content strategy for all platforms based on your research: branded company blog, company forum, social networks, social bookmarking sites, social wikis, microblogging sites, video and more. (Not all platforms are right for every business and industry, your above research should help you hone in on the areas most worth your time)
7. CREATE Begin to create and publish content.
8. ENGAGE Welcome and facilitate conversation about your brand and your industry. Respond to comments on your blog (good AND bad—resist the urge to delete negative feedback, respond intelligently, ignore obvious trouble-makers), follow potential partners and offer thoughtful commentary on their blogs, and join conversations on Twitter and Facebook.
9. MEASURE Track, review and quantify your results regularly. There is lots of great software out now for every budget. Some of the best are Radian6 and Hubspot, and a really affordable option I personally like is TwentyFeet.
10. ADJUST Be flexible and ready to change your strategy as needed.

Useful resource: Social Media Map via Overdrive Interactive