But with it, also reports about the lack of proper information.  Nobody questions the fact IF you can use Facebook, Twitter,… for business, but HOW?  What is the best social media set-up?

Before you start reading, this is not a ‘how to’with an explanation… it’s a ‘how to’with lots of questions.  Depending on how you want to communicate (or engage) there’s a difference between two basic set-ups.

One-2-one (social networks)

Social networks like Facebook are a collection of individuals sharing information with each other basically in a one-2-one way (or many-2-many depending how you look at it).  It’s great for professionals to promote themselves as a brand.  Ideally they collect al the tools at their disposal and center them around themselves, when they work together they create optimal exposure.  The network itself is the beginning and the end.  It’s where you engage and where you get your information.  But you can cross-over from one network to another.  Putting your Twitter updates into your Facebook status is a simple example.

One-2-many (online communities)

Online communities are we-places.  Places with people with a common interest.  Contrary to social networks these communities, once set-up, require minimal effort in sustaining them.  They exist because of the people who joined and keep it alive.  Perhaps one of the reasons why some online communities are so successful is because they don’t try to sell anything.  Nike+ created an online community where people with a common goal could come together and share information.  Of course they want to sell shoes, but it seems like a secondary concern.  They create an online community and with it the possibility to spread that information towards the existing networks, like the funny Nike+ widget on Facebook.  The community is only the beginning and the possibilities seem endless when you take the information and use for something else.

So how does your set-up look like?  How do you use networks like Facebook for business?  Do you use the information you get to create something more, to crossover to other networks?  Do you think you’re optimally using the networks you’re engaged in or how would you like to use them?  Let’s learn a bit from each other here! :)

Tom is a marketing & communications manager at Kursaal Oostende in Ostend (Belgium).  He writes about marketing, management and social media on Who’s Reading Anyway? and about customer relations on Who’s Listening Anyway?.