Engage with customers…. sound familiar?
Keep a corporate blog, encourage customers to interact on Facebook and Twitter, provide a constant stream of interesting and relevant information to your target audience at breakneck speed….

This can pose as a huge challenge for many big corporations that are just getting their toes wet in the social media scene. Many big companies still remain cautious for many reasons. Two reasons are that it is unfamiliar territory, and that the ROI from it is still somewhat vague (especially for industries where the sales cycle is long).

A number of bigger companies also have a peer review system that can slow down the process. In the web world, information comes at hyper-speed – and doesn’t coincide with the checks and balances that have already been put in place for content.

Social media is slowly getting the people-power it needs to be done successfully. In many big companies, social media is typically given to someone in the marketing department and may not have someone devoted to it 100% in their workday. But, the emergence of community managers, digital marketing managers, social media coordinators are coming onto the scene that devote their time fully to social media monitoring, providing client service and engaging with the right target markets

Here is a list of five tips to get started on building your social media empire from the ground up:.

1. Write guidelines that cover both social media use on behalf of the company…. and also for staff who want to talk on social media sites about what they are up to workwise on their personal account

2. Have a staff member that is interested in social media? Send them to a course in web marketing. If in the Toronto area, there is an excellent course at the University of Toronto. (It is also offered online)

3. Subscribe to some social media experts to stay in the loop: Mashable, Webiquity (B2B-specific), Marketing Sherpa, eMarketer to name a few…

4. Put together a strategy with conservative objectives (ex. start 3-4 conversations per month) Remember, it takes time for your social media engagement to grow – opening a twitter account and tweeting once a week is not going to cut it.

5. Getting negative attention on social media? DO NOT delete the comment or be rude to the negative commenter (remember Nestle’s Facebook page in April 2010?) – Instead respond to the comment in a timely and professional manner. Offer solutions and empathy.

I am sure there is something I missed – any comments? other tips to share? questions?