There are several quick ways that businesses can set up social marketing sites to integrate with their wider marketing policy. All these strategies, of course, are aimed at getting users of a company's products involved and interested. So any company creating a presence on one of the major sites will need to be sure it has social media policies that encourage a genuine two-way conversation with customers. The first time people feel they're being disrespected or regarded as merely a means to the company's ends, the business could suffer bad publicity through these very same social media avenues.

As a simple example, let's assume that a company's social media strategy is to put in place a Facebook Fan Page, a blog, and a Twitter profile. Facebook allows the company to announce updates about services, but is also a place where it announces notices about surveys and events, and asks questions like, "Would you like this type of product?" or "How should we undertake this objective?" As individuals become fans of the company, their own friends find out, and some follow them there. They engage with the company and with one another, and the page becomes a social marketing website with the fans frequently doing as much marketing as the company.

A blog, including the occasional video blog, allows the company to do reviews of its products or services, while other posts are written to discuss the general use of these products, or the trends in the industry. As long as there is ongoing valuable information here as well as self-promotional material, people will keep returning. If the company also sets up a Flickr photo site to showcase its products, then this social marketing tool could allow customers to send in their own photographs of these products as they are being used. These photos can be linked to in blog posts on Facebook or on Twitter.

On Twitter, this emphasis on two-way conversation takes on new meaning. Social marketing on this site involves the company blogger being prepared to converse with any customer or potential customer on the spot. It will also involve getting to know these people as people, and not just as customers. But most of the new social media sites involve this process to some degree. A corporate social media plan is going to launch the company into a whole new relationship with the constituency it hopes to serve and profit from. Only if a company takes this fact seriously will it succeed at reaching those whom it wants to reach.

Business marketing on the new social media websites is becoming the thing to do for many corporations. But they need to be cautious and do the job right, or their reputation could suffer.