I recently presented at the Bigfoot Social Networking Conference held at the Harborside in Bremerton. It was a terrific inaugural event that drew over 150 business professionals from all industries. What I discovered is that there are an abundance of business people confused, unsure, and apprehensive about the whole fascination over social media. This conference gave participants the opportunity to be educated and learn strategies and techniques to leverage this burgeoning technology. That could potentially be even MORE confusing, as there are a plethora of contradistinctive theories and applications held and espoused by smart people.

I’m here to offer my 10 simple strategies for the business professional and organization to aid you in developing your brand, marketing your product or service, reducing your liability, and saving your valuable time. This will be split out over two editions, so make sure you read next month’s column, too!

Consider this Dan’s Social Media Mayhem Best Practices for (those who feel like) Dummies. This month, we examine how to get started:

1. Know Your WHY

Why do you want to be in social media? Is it because you want to help others or just because someone told you that you needed to be? Determine what end-result you want to attain — increased visibility, increased sales; becoming a thought-leader, increasing brand awareness, improved lines of communication, or something else that’s important to you. Think in terms of outcomes, not methodology. As Yogi Berra once eloquently quipped, “If you don’t know where you are going, you may end up somewhere else.” That’s a dead end without GPS in social media.

2. Empower Your People

Create a corporate policy by empowering your people to develop it for you. If you’re scared of what your employees might do or say about you, you have bigger problems than Twitter. Entrust them with the task of determining your guidelines, best practices, and conflict resolution strategies. They will undoubtedly create better and more stringent approaches than you can. Don’t mistrust them; make them part of the process.

3. Pick the Platform

Depending on your business, you may not need to be in every platform. Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, You Tube, and My Space may target divergent audiences and disseminate information differently. This goes back to your “why” and adds the “who” to your equation. Don’t be a lemming. Pick the platforms that best serve your purposes and those of your intended audience.

4. Do It Yourself

Don’t subcontract someone to post for you. That defeats the purpose. Hire in-house or do it yourself. You have the pulse of your business and your customers. You can act quickly and respond with more verve. It’s more personal and business is about relationships first and foremost.

5. Link to Save Time

Link your platforms, blogs, You Tube, et al together so you only need to make single entries. This is a huge time-saver. Someone in your organization can help you do this. If I can figure it out, so can you! Stop wasting your time and make technology work for you, not against you.

The bottom line is that technology will continue to advance providing you with fast, inexpensive, and capacious opportunities to market yourself. If you don’t keep current, you will be left behind and may never be able to catch up. But, if you make even a small effort to understand and leverage the phenomenon of technology, you will enhance your brand, expand your marketing, and build your business.

Next month, we tackle the “how” so you can save time and increase your influence.