IMEDIA CONNECTION — With the meteoric rise of social media networks, companies have struggled to identify how to best manage their presence across social media channels. Some are tackling the challenge by hiring a dedicated expert to focus on social media management; others simply add a new level of responsibilities for existing employees, asking them to engage with their brands in a different way. Neither route is necessarily better than the other. But no matter who you designate as your social stars, you'll need to make sure you have the right person for the job and make a plan for optimizing their efforts on your brand's behalf. So first, let's define the skills that a social media star (SMS) should have, and then outline their most appropriate regular tasks...

CONVINCE & CONVERT — I’ve spent a lot of time working with various social media monitoring tools and I’ve whittled my list of favorites down to two or three. But I get a lot of questions about why I like particular tools better than others and how I decide to use which, so here’s a summary of my thought process that I hope will help you make a similar decision for your client or your organization. First – What are the objectives? What questions are you trying to answer?...

TECHIPEDIA — Over the past two years or so, social media’s increased popularity has really done something for those assuming that it’s all a "get rich quick" opportunity. The widespread adoption of social media has caused for hordes of "experts" to suddenly come into town assuming that they can totally own this niche. These new "Internet Marketers" take Twitter by storm, using automated Twitter tools in abundance that give them the true appearance of expertise. They are no-name people who all of the sudden have 22,000 followers while following 23,000, but that doesn’t matter because a newbie trying to market his business sees this 5 digit number and gets excited about the opportunities to reach so many people so quickly. It’s a Utopian mindset but one that clueless business owners step into after following an "expert" and hiring him for services...

DACHIS GROUP COLLABORATORY — One of the biggest challenges businesses face today regarding social media is understanding how to appropriately staff initiatives. This challenge is compounded by the inability for some businesses to hire new, full-time people to relieve the existing overwhelmed workforce as a result of the current recession. At Dachis Group, we observe that many businesses are missing tremendous opportunities because social media practitioners volunteer their time and no one is truly responsible or held accountable for specific initiatives. A major component of Social Business Design is developing a staffing model to support our clients’ desires to harness opportunities presented by customer participation. A question we have had to address is whether or not any of the new social roles we recommend can be outsourced...

IMEDIA CONNECTION — As Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have made it possible for firms of any size to engage their customers, it's hard to find a business today that's not incorporating social media into its marketing strategy. But simply having a presence doesn't guarantee success. Everything you do online is highly visible and can have a lasting impact on your brand, so it's critical to have people on your team who can develop and execute a social media strategy that fulfills your company's specific needs...