Before businesses make the leap into the social web, it would benefit their reputation to take a step back and consider the consequences of a poorly organized engagement strategy using social media. Simply put – social media engagement is how your business manages and interacts with conversations regarding the brand throughout the social web – be it on a company blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc . . .

The first step, and arguably most important, is to listen and monitor the conversations on the social web. Creating and implementing a custom  social media dashboard is becoming best practice to help monitor brand mentions and help detect growing trends for your brand. Once you have established a system to monitor your brand, you’ll then be able to answer these questions;

What are the main channels of communication for your brand? Too often, businesses will take a blind leap into the social web by attempting to have a presence in as many social networks as they can. This is not the most effective strategy, as you could be focused on building community around your brand where it may not exist. Instead, monitor your brand’s dashboard and identify where your audience is established – be it on microblogs, such as Twitter, social networks, such as Facebook, Blogs, Forums, etc..

Who are the players in your space? By monitoring your brand and the people who talking about it, you can begin to identify who the influencers in the community are, along with who your brand evangelists are. It pays to interact with the influencers regarding your brand because they typically have established a large following within the community.

How do the conversations start? All conversations on the social web have a starting point, no matter if they are one-to-one on Twitter, or found in a forum thread with many users conversing together. Taking some time to identify how the conversation was kicked off can be huge insight for a brands market research team. Positive or negative – each conversation is a type of mini focus group.

When to engage your brand in the conversation? I feel that this is the most important question to answer before engaging your brand in any social marketing relationship. At what point do you feel that your social media profile needs to act as a customer service rep or give expert advice on a product or service? Once you have engaged your brand in the conversation, it is very difficult to find an exit strategy without sacrificing your brand’s online reputation.

Something to think about as you help your brand a create solid engagement strategy for the social web. Enjoy your Wednesday!