If BP can’t get anything done in the Gulf of Mexico, social media sure can.

Google “twitter oil spill” and up comes a TechCrunch article, “Central Command Turns to Twitter to Solve the Gulf Oil Spill” (followed by the words “Uh Oh,” relating to the fact that BP is looking for people with tech expertise via social media for ideas to stop the spill).

The article explains how a group of a dozen or so organizations including BP, the EPA, the U.S. Department of Interior, the Department of Defense, and OSHA have set up Deepwater Horizon Response to manage response operations. “In addition to a Web site for this effort,” the article notes, “there’s a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a Flickr account and a YouTube account.” All of these combined efforts are giving people worldwide a ton of information about the spill. The Twitter page alone has 7,843 followers.

How does this relate to your business? Realizing that the chance is nill that you’ll have to pull a PR/social media blitz the scope of BP’s within the lifetime of your business, the incident nevertheless highlights the power of the Internet and social media to get information out to large groups of people. You can, in essence, move mountains, whether you need to inform about a disruption in your business, a problem you’ve encountered with a product or service or another notable breach that affects you and your customers.

Say something does happen to your company that demands a bit of finesse; what if a figurative “oil spill” occurred and you suddenly found that you had to rely on social media marketing to clean up the mess?

Your company and what it stands for are emblazoned into a brand name; if your brand becomes tarnished there’s no better way to blunt the PR damage than through a social media marketing campaign. Use these Internet tools to explain, to inform and to mitigate, if not on a global basis, then on a local level. Customers are customers, whether they span the globe or take out their garbage on the next street.

Social media is fast becoming synonymous with information resource. Used effectively it can help you pave the way to better relations with customers.

In this new world of networking you need to ask yourself an important question: Are you being anti-social?

Funny, that hyphenated word used to carry a whole different meaning, as in people who engaged in behavior that was outside the norm. Shunning social media doesn’t place you outside the boundaries of generally accepted behavior but it does place you outside in the cold and away from an effective form of business marketing.

Embracing social media marketing is like giving your business a facelift. Dropping fifty pounds and buying a new wardrobe. Painting the living room. It’s all the same – it gives you a new perspective and once that’s understood, the sky’s the limit when it comes to how far you can take your marketing plan.

Changing from an old to new mindset is not always easy. In the 1920s the automobile blew past the horse and buggy; in the 1950s, TV edged out radio and in the 1990s the Internet flexed its muscle and overpowered everything and with each rumble of thunder there came a resistance that consistently sought to harken back to the “good old days.”

But by the early 2000s, the old method of advertising and marketing became the leisure suit of the industry – a hackneyed and tired piece of clothing best left to old disco movies.

So in establishing the new you and, in essence, establishing a new format for your marketing campaign and embracing social media, you might find that you’re having trouble adapting to a new world order. You might, in effect, find that you’re anti-social. If you do keep these points in mind:

1. It’s not as painful as you might think. Social media marketing is a few clicks into a world of interconnected relationships that can bring power and prestige to your business.
2. Social media marketing, via Facebook and Twitter, enables you to target your audience. Thus, you can bring additional leverage to your business, something that old forms of advertising and marketing could never deliver.
3. Marketing via the internet allows you to connect daily, hourly, minute by minute, in real time with consumers. An instantaneous flow of possibilities is at your fingertips.

So throw off the old tweeds and loafers and get a new look via social media marketing. Wear it well and see how your business grows.

As with everything else in business, successful social media marketing entails building a strategy. Aligned with your core business principles such a platform should provide information on monthly, seasonal and annual occurrences that affect your business and, as such, affect your customers. Planning such a strategy will help to drive traffic to your Web site and your blog but it’s important to remember some key points in order to get the most out of it:

• Develop a planned strategy: three- six or 12-month. Know what blog topics you’ll be posting on what dates. By doing this you’re letting your subscribers know when to expect your next blog post and they’ll anticipate it on the same date every time. If your postings are all over the map – different times, different days every month or every other month – you might not get the feedback you want. You might not get any feedback.
• Don’t be aimless. In other words, don’t rattle on about the weather if you really want to discuss information on what your business offers consumers during a particular season. Likewise, don’t rant on a particular issue that’s bothering you. People drawn to your blog site don’t want your opinion; they want information on a solution.
• Entertain. While the name of the game is to supply information, at the same time, have some fun with it. Even the driest of subject matters can be presented in a format that’s enjoyable to read.
• Learn the art of creating the perfect subject line. If you’re introducing a new blog topic via mass email, make the subject line intriguing enough so that people will want to click through. Use action words and present tense to give a sense of urgency.
• Be engaged on social media network sites. Use Twitter and Facebook not just as a place to dump information on your business. Interact with people; share information and be interested in what they’re telling you. That sort of give and take helps to build a network and a following.

Social media marketing is, indeed, a multi-level strategy to engage, to capture interest and to build continuing relationships. Doing it correctly can make you and your business stand out in the crowd.

Unlike any other source, Social Media sites have given organizations the opportunity to create their online image and in turn, build their brand image.  Social Media Marketing lends organizations the skills to develop relationships with clients, insight into the company, and global exposure to the essence of what their company is.

Why is this beneficial to a business? It is beneficial because it gives organizations the tools and resources to build the image of what they see their company as of today, and what they see their company as in the future.

Several tools used within Social Media that will help a company build their image include:

• The physical image of a companies brand like logos, pictures, and videos are tools used several times a day on social media sites to help build a companies image.  Unlike a website which is usually static everyday, Social Media sites such as twitter and facebook are updated several times a day driving a company image into the minds of their audience.

• Brand image can also be developed through words.  Status updates, blogs and tweets to name a few are ways a company can develop their brand image. Through stories and descriptions their audience will have a grand picture of what their product is and how it  benefits them.

• Communication will also help develop a company’s brand image.  The unique benefit of Social Media compared to other internet marketing tools is that it directly speaks to the audience and encourages feedback.  Through this feed back an organization can measure if their brand image is being conveyed correctly and what type of steps can be taken to ensure a strong brand image.

The combination of images, words and communication that Social Media Marketing has to offer is genius, it gives all the right ingredients an organization needs to build and maintain their online image.  Used correctly, Social Media can ensure a company’s brand image goals will be successful goals.

The Social Media website Facebook has done in nine short months what it took television 13 years to do – build a network of 50 million users.  Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and others also account for 11 percent of all worldwide Internet usage. That is 11 percent of what the entire world is doing online and with the multitude of activities one could be participating in online, those are serious statistics!

The results of Social Media Marketing differ drastically from the results of traditional marketing efforts like television or direct mail for two main reasons:

Consumers today are not the same consumers of yesterday.  Today, consumer are watching television, updating their Facebook, texting on their cell and eating dinner, simultaneously.  Until something strikes their curiosity, they have the ability to not fully focus on any one particular task.

Consumers today have built infiltration systems and are less likely to respond to one particular advertisement.  Advertisements are on billboards, web pages, products, text messages, commercials, blogs, and social media sites.  With so much information surrounding each consumer it is only reasonable for the human brain to cope by filtering all this information. Statistics show that consumers are more likely to trust a friend’s opinion or advice over that of an advertisement. This goes to show you that consumers are more interested in what their friends have to say and social networking is one of the places they interact with friends. Therefore, if their friends are commenting on a companies page or product on social media sites, their friends will see and  are more likely to respond.

So where does this leave Social Media Marketing?  It leaves social media sites to do what it does best, socialize.  By having hands on contact with consumers companies are not only letting them into their world, but they are also in theirs.  Consumers are laying their cards on the table and all you have to do is play.  Think outside the box when it comes to social media, think beyond banner advertisements and mass emails but open yourself up to the concept of the opportunity to capture the attention of the world by opening the lines of communication.