Social media can be a strong asset to your organic search engine ranking efforts, and can also help you shape your brand message. But remember: Social media is yet another window into your business practices. Don’t let folks see you in your underwear!

Social Media applications like Twitter and Facebook have long been the province of “the kids”. Recently, however, there’s been a lot of press about how these online communities may in fact be the cure-all for an economy in recession.

• Can Twitter really rocket your business ahead of your competitors?
• Can Facebook dramatically lower your marketing costs?
• Is it true that LinkedIn will provide the road map to peace in the Middle East?

The answers are… “maybe,” “probably,” and “anything’s possible.”

Before we look at how you might be able to use social media for your business

Here are a few ground rules:

1. Be careful what you say You never know who might be reading your tweets or other social media posts. Don’t badmouth clients, vendors, bosses, or well-connected sheiks.
2. Have something to say While I might care that my high school friend is having a great taco in Denver, no one cares that your business thinks it is really hip because it figured out how to say “we’re on Facebook!” on Facebook. Your posts don’t have to be long, beautiful, or groundbreaking; but they do have to provide value to your friends/followers.
3. Post frequently Many a business decides to “get into the social media game” by signing up for these services… only to have their feeds fall silent a few months later. Better to have not gotten in the game at all than to demonstrate in a highly public way that your business doesn’t have follow-through.
4. Don’t forget the link Social media posts by your business should include a hyperlink back to your website for more information. One of the main benefits of using social media for business is building inbound relevant links to your website, which in turn builds organic search engine rankings. Note: if there isn’t more information available on your website, that’s a problem that needs to be solved ASAP (but is the subject of another blog post).

How does one put these rules into practice?

Here are a few use-cases:

eCommerce Websites You’ve got it easy. If you are selling stuff online, you will no doubt have new products, new promotions, 50% off sales, web coupons, etc. Every one of these events is an opportunity to say something meaningful via social media channels.

Nonprofit Organizations Nonprofits are, by their very nature, action-oriented. Any specific examples of your organization fulfilling its mission should be tweeted/shared/posted. These actions include: publishing new web pages, holding workshops, creating newsletters, sponsoring projects/events, receiving or giving awards, holding fundraisers, and more.

Bricks and Mortar Businesses Depending on your industry, your primary audience may be yellow pages/magazine/telephone-type people. Why is it important to market your business via social media in this case? The answer is: message management. If you’re not out there talking about what you do and how you do it, you can bet that someone else is. People don’t generally go out of their way to blog, tweet, or share information about a random company or organization—unless you’ve really pissed them off. Don’t let these rants be the only brand message available online.

Consultants If you’re a writer, lawyer, marketing expert, or other professional consultant, you should have a steady stream of results. Make sure people know about them. You may also have a steady stream of opinions, and it’s worth considering making these more available via a blog—which you can then link back to in your social media postings (Hmmm… sounds like someone I know.)

The bottom line is that social media can be a strong asset to your organic search engine ranking efforts, and can also help you shape your brand message before others shape it for you. While there are some important rules, they aren’t hard to follow.

Oh, and be sure to tweet us up if you happen to come across that road map to Middle East peace…