It’s about the conversation – not the number of friends or followers.

Social Media has become the buzz word of the day on the internet. Carrying websites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace and turning them to the glorious way for marketers to make money without spending money. It couldn�t be farther from the truth. For one, if you get everyone in your company to Twitter, you�re taking them away from their real jobs. To successfully work in Social Media you need to have a person who understands it and to continually monitoring and developing the plan.

Having a person dedicated to social media does not mean hiring a full time Twitter intern. Social Media is not simply creating Facebook profiles. Social Media is away for companies to open up dialog for consumers and to achieve granular details about the client like never before.

What really attracts people to Social Media is the fact that they can reach people they wouldn�t normally have access to. If you aren�t responding and actively engaging your customers through your social media initiatives then you�re paying someone a lot of money to screw around on the internet.

It�s laughable to see corporate Twitter accounts being followed by 50,000 people � but that corporate account is only following one person. What is that? There is no interaction, there is no socializing, and it�s not social media. It�s almost more laughable when a corporate account follows 50,000 people and still acts the same way the corporate account following one person does. If you don�t occasionally respond to the people that follow you and ask questions it isn�t social media.

Social Media also isn�t another place to jam your brand down consumer�s throats. I follow about 180 people and I probably actively pay attention to are the people who post funny things or post interesting topics. The people who just post a bunch of links to new products � well I don�t follow very many of those. I’ve also started to trim down the people who I don’t find interesting or hold conversations with.

I recently saw a ‘social media expert’ tweet about how they thought it was funny that people with less followers than them would make posts about how to gain twitter followers, and then followed the tweet with a profane hash tag. That person followed some 3,000+ people, what do you think the percentage of people she actually communicated with out of those 3,000 people was. I’m guessing less than .01%. It’s pretty easy to get 3,000 people following you if you follow 3,000 people. The real expert will be the person following 3 people but its followed by 3,000.

Another way people misuse Social Media is they don�t have a plan. �We�ll do it because the kids are into it� isn�t a plan � well it is a plan, but not a plan for success. If that�s your attitude, it�s time to wake up because the internet isn�t going anywhere. You as marketers have the ability connect and get more data about your consumer than you have ever had. Find out what consumers like and dislike about the product. Somebody somewhere hates your product � get over it.

Social Media isn�t Facebook, isn�t Twitter, isn�t MySpace. Don�t get the idea that being on the most platforms means you�re social media forward. You can get more results just using Twitter than all the others combined if you know how to leverage it. Social Media is conversation and dialog with the consumer. If you allow the consumer to leave feedback on your site and actively us the information it supplies that�s more social media forward, and useful than creating a thousand Twitter accounts to have some phantom Twit post to. Social Media is trendy – today it’s Facebook and Twitter, tomorrow who knows?

Do you think the only place people are going to talk negative about your product is on your Facebook page? Why not take the opportunity to defend your product head on, or realize you have serious problems and actually fix the damn thing. It isn�t the 1930�s anymore � word gets around fast when something�s wrong. Because you don�t let people see bad comments on you blog doesn�t mean nobody will see them.

As Dave Culbertson of Lightbulb Interactive points out even most large corporations don�t get Social Media. A big example of this is Ford, which shouts �We use social media, we�re hip and cool� but it fails to be nothing more than the same old tactics of marketing days of old. He calls companies that do this �social media chickenhawks.� See Ford has social media initiatives � but they don�t use them. Dave explains that Ford started off with a neat idea but dropped the ball by only offering up one vehicle model, one that isn�t even sold in the US yet to and then didn�t even bother to interact with the consumers they lent the car to. This point is clearly lost on Ford as their �Social Media Guru� � Scott Monty, who responded to Dave and just didn�t get the point Dave was trying to hit home. Ford should be letting people review their cars on their site � much like most electronics site allow users review products.

It�s about the conversation. Engage the consumer or take the �Guru� off the resume. Because if you�re just doing the same thing you�ve always done, you don�t need a new title, unless that title is Social Media Chickenhawk.

In the past month or so at least 4 executives have branched out from both Google and MySpace. If you know what it’s like to work at Google you have to wonder what they are thinking. Apparently, it’s that they think they can do social networking better. Most recently, three executives from MySpace, including Amit Kapur, left MySpace to join a start up. It seems a little crazy to ditch a well paying job in this economy but you gotta do what you gotta do.

The biggest question it sparks, is just how much social networking can we take? Isn’t the social networking market pretty well saturated? Between MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many other sites what are the odds for social networking startups to succeed?

One of these start-ups is Likaholix. Started by a former Googler, Likaholix seems to be a Twitter like item for products and media. The idea is that you make suggestions for things that you like and people comment it and favorite on it. It is still in private beta, so to say it is a tad undercooked is being pretty accurate.

[Read] Total Telecom Three MySpace execs quit, including COO
[Read] Mashable Why Googlers Are Leaving to Start Social Sites

Where does Facebook fit into all of this? Good question! Because even though they managed to nab another 222 MILLION unique visitors in December, twice as many as MySpace they only managed a measly $300 million in ad money. What gives? Well Facebook’s model gets exploited without making profit. Burger King made headlines with the often mentioned “Dump 10 friends, Get Whopper” ad, and Facebook made zilch.

Facebook doesn’t play the same game MySpace is. Facebook doesn’t get taken over, or super plastered with advertisements. And that’s their game. Facebook is working the Pull mechanism while MySpace is sticking to tried and true pushing. The problem for Facebook is that while alot of companies rely on on the Facebook platform for free advertising and networking, Facebook has yet to figure out how to capitalize on it. The plus side is Facebook’s popularity might be more recession proof for it. Which puts a oncstant drain on the servers, without a constant poor in to the bank.

Are you waiting for the pull? Here it comes, while companies have been getting ads for free, their fans have been increasing. It’s a measurable figure. You know who is paying attention to you. Viewers of MySpace colorful ad pages might be ignoring them, but not the New York Times Facebook fans. When the Gray Lady allowed people to “gift” images of Obama on their front page, NYT fans tripled to 160,000.

Facebook is also adopting more engagement ads like offering up surveys. Markets now get brand awareness and concrete numbers to analyze. It’s a dream for them, and probably a cash cow for Facebook. The worry is that as these yet untested methods are now offered, companies now on the rocks might be cutting experimental advertising and sticking with cheap banner ads. Maybe Facebook’s approach is not so recession proof.

Read: AdAge “Facebook’s Plan to Amp Up Ad Revenue”