Many marketing people and executives are looking to social media as a way to turn up the interaction with consumers. In particularly, there is the idea that social media is “free” except for intense personnel costs and that the e-marketing and direct mail costs can be cut back. Here are some of the comments from social media experts to help you make the best decision about how social media:

“I’ll say that again: the quality and value of your efforts on the social web will dry up this year (2012), as more and more saturation take us to the point where we can’t even bother to read tweets any longer.,” Chris Brogan, www.chrisbrogan.com.

The sad truth is that social media doesn’t work for the majority of companies that fall into the “you can do social media in 10 minutes a day” trap. If you’re a company with 11 to 100 people, you’ll need to devote 35% to 75% of a full-time employee’s efforts to social media,” Jamie Turner, www.60secondmarketer.com.

“Social networking is still the fastest-growing active social media behaviour online, but there is “clear fatigue in Facebook usage and stalling Twitter growth”, says a leading global web survey,” www.iolscitech.

In trying to develop a social media presence, the first step is a strategy for gaining results and that can be tracked for success. The next step is to provide support from a budget, whether from the personnel or marketing budget allocation. Third, it is important to understand what your brand will use effectively to pop up on a consumer’s Facebook (FB) wall or in a tweet that will be welcomed, not an interruption.

Here are the three questions to ask when stepping into social media:

• Who will be the voice, the personality behind our social media? People don’t want faceless brands on FB or Twitter, they are on these to be social.
• What type of content will be of value to customers/members/prospects that will enhance your brand value? It is easy to go too far on the range from just pushing out promotions to being too personal.

How can you gain more visitors to your corporate website and have it be robust with information when visited? While social media sites offer a place for engagement, there is an opportunity to encourage them to go to your website for more information, more content and more solutions.