My wife isn't on twitter – and that's okay

It’s true, she can’t be found on twitter, brightkite, flickr, jaiku, identi.ca, linkedin, digg, magnolia, pandora, stumbleupon, tumblr, vimeo, youtube, ebay, technorati, twitte, friendfeed, posterous, delicious, wordpress, pownce, tinyurl, funnyordie, kwippy, yahoo, gmail, ustreamtv, and others. And, that’s okay.

I can be found all those places – and more. And that’s okay.

Social media isn’t for everyone or every business and that’s okay. What’s not okay is to engage in any communication effort without sound reasoning and research.

Before you jump in, take a look at your business plan: audience analysis, your vision, the goals, objectives and strategy. Find those areas where customers are mentioned and look at how you are reaching them or want to reach them. How they are reaching you, how you want them to be able to reach you and how they want to reach you. Figure out if you want to help them talk with each other (they will or already are) and if so, how can you facilitate and engage in that conversation – or should you?

Then take a step back and answer these other questions:

• Is my customer base looking for a community or would one benefit them?
• Are they already engaged in an online community and if so, where?
• Will engaging in social media provide value to my customers – will they be more satisfied and committed to my business?
• What happens if I don’t engage some social media tactics in my business?
• What happens if my competition does?

Once you have the answers to these questions (and many, many more) you will know if you should engage social media tactics in your communications efforts. And whether you do or don’t, that’s okay so long as you decision is a sound business decision. If you still aren’t sure or are hesitant about any element of the above then seek out expert help, someone with experience is strategic communications, just as you would an attorney or accountant. Most communication tools are free but your greatest expense can be using them poorly.