Social marketing strategy

Toby the Marketing Diva has some advice today about using social media as marketing tools. In a nutshell, she says you've got to have a strategy. Don't just jump in and build a MySpace page willy-nilly because it's the cool thing to do. Toby suggests 10 ways to use social media. Among them:

1. Open customer communications .. listen and learn.
3. Improve Customer service
8. Build community

But one of the great insights in this post is Toby's discussion of the "value add" in social media. Building on the thoughts of Amy Gahran at The Right Conversation, she points out that we all gain something when we communicate with our customers or our constituents or our members. We are building goodwill, we are learning from diverse perspectives and creativity, and we are growing in a host of other ways. Those things might not be classified as part of a "strategy," but they are nonetheless benefits.