Social media is so much a part of my business that I sometimes forget how other generations or businesses might not understand it. This became obvious when my mom, who works in retail, tried her hand at using Twitter for her business. She had some of the basics, like following people and getting followers, but at first missed the real point of the tool. Here’s the basics.

1. Social media is a dialogue

The great revolution in corporate communication is from monologue to dialogue. Instead of vomiting some well-thought-out jargony little advertisement or promotion, companies use social media to talk with consumers and, more importantly, respond to them. Look at RogersHelps, a Twitter account the hunts down negative Rogers tweets and responds to any questions directed its way.

2. Social media has a face

One easy mistake to make is impersonalizing your social media presence. On Twitter, this means posting your company logo as your profile picture and not identifying the tweeter. On Facebook, this means posting serious, corporate-style posts and promotions rather than using a conversational tone. These are easy fixes. Add your own photo and overlay your logo, like we do at the Gazette. If you want to use your company name as your Twitter name, update the bio to describe who’s tweeting, like Starbucks, which provides “Freshly brewed tweets from Brad at Starbucks in Seattle, WA.”

3. Social media is on your website, too

Another big mistake is to view social media as starting and ending on Facebook and Twitter. These are social media platforms, not social media. Comments are are also a social media tool. Good websites use their web presence to build relationship with consumers and help them create relationships with each other. Salon.com, named after the “Ideal Speech Situation,” allows users to post their own articles in their Open Salon platform. The Daily Kos has a deep, rich, active back end of user-generated content called Diaries. CBC Radio 3 invested big money into their new website, which is hands down the best radio website on the internet. On your website, you can do something simple like allowing users to create their own profiles.

Conclusion

This has a powerful effect on readers — especially in the newspaper industry. For far too long, newspapers have been viewed as faceless monoliths, which bred the kind of cynicism that works against journalism today. Especially on the campus journalism level, social media can help drop the veil between student and student-writer. The same can be said for student governments, who need to invest more in developing social media if they want to see any actual difference in student engagement. So don’t do this.