Just kidding. I really do enjoy the X Games.

Anyway, regardless of if you have a social media expert on staff or not (if you don’t, just go on LinkedIn, there seem to be quite a few available these days), it’s not a bad idea to have a plan in place for your social media program.

A plan? What I’m referring to is having a basic idea of what you’re going to use your brand’s Facebook, Twitter, Friendster, etc., profile for.

There are a lot of options out there.  One option is to just spout about what’s going on with your brand.  Another option is to interact with fans/followers.  Have a conversation with your brand’s champions and challengers.  Or, you can selectively respond when the need arises, have the time or feel the situation warrants it.  That seems to be what Surfrider does.

Recently we made an announcement for project BLUE.  Because Surfrider is a beneficiary of project BLUE, they reposted the news on their Facebook site.  It turns out a fan on the Surfrider page doesn’t think the organization does enough and made a public comment about it. While some organizations just let these comments stew and go unanswered, the folks at Surfrider responded quickly and succinctly.

Nice job Surfrider.

Take a second to think about what you’re doing online, how you’re doing it and who is handling the execution. Make sure you have a program in place and people running it who can adequately respond to issues.  Honestly, I feel it’s unlikely that any organization will have enough staff to respond to, or even want to respond to, ever comment, challenge or kudo posted about them on the Internet.  However, you should make sure whoever monitoring your program is on it and has the maturity to make the right decisions, including when and how to respond.

Your social media presence is an online extension of your brand.  It’s the sign people see as they pull into your parking lot. If someone sprayed graffiti on your sign, you’d try to clean it up, no?

(If someone did this on our building, we’d probably leave it